<    I 


/  \ 


V 

/\ 


LIFE, 


EDUCATIONAL  PRINCIPLES,  AND  METHODS, 


OP 


JOHN  HENRY  PESTALOZZI; 


WITH 


BIOGEAPHICAL    SKETCHES 


OF  SEVERAL  OF  HIS 


ASSISTANTS    AND    DISCIPLES. 


Reprinted  from,  the  American  Journal  of  Education. 

EDITED   BY  HENRY  BARNARD,  LL.D, 

Chancellor   of   the    University   of  Wisconsin. 


IN   TWO   PARTS 


NEW  YOEK: 
PUBLISHED    BY    F.   C.    BROWNELL, 

NO.    12    APPLETON'S    BUILDING, 

1859. 


ENTERED,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1859, 

BY  HENRY  BARNARD, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  Connecticut. 

eoucATior 


SECOND  EDITION. 


THE  following  Memoirs  and  Papers  were  originally  prepared 
by  the  editor,  or  at  his  request,  for  "  The  American  Journal  of 
Education"  as  part  of  the  History  and  Discussion  of  the  great 
subject  to  which  that  periodical  is  devoted.  They  are  col- 
lected in  the  present  volume,  as  a  Tribute  to  the  Character 
and  Services  of  one  of  the  great  Champions  of  Popular  En- 
lightenment, and  as  a  valuable  contribution  to  the  department 
of  Educational  Literature  in  the  English  language. 


54 -i 


PART    I. 

MEMOIR  OF  PESTALOZZI,  AND   BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCHES 
OF   SEVERAL  OF  HIS  ASSISTANTS  AND  DISCIPLES. 

PART    II. 

SELECTIONS  FROM  THE  PUBLICATIONS  OF  PESTALOZZI. 


CONTENTS. 


PART  I. 
LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

Portrait  of  Pestalozzi, 1 

Preface, 

INTRODUCTION.    Influence  of  Pestalozzi  on  the  aims,  principles,  and  methods  of  popular 

education. 

Influence  on  Reformatory  Education.     By  Dr.  Blochmann,         ...'.- 

Influence  on  the  Sch'ls  and  Educational  Methods  of  Germany.     By  Dr.  Diesterweg,  16 
Summary  of  Pestalozzi's  Principles  of  Education.    By  William  C.  Woodbridge, 

Influence  on  the  Infant  School  System  of  England,            32 

LIFE  OF  PESTALOZZI.    By  Karl  von  Raumer, 37 

Preface, 41 

I.  Childhood  and  Youth,  1746-1767, 49 

II.  Agricultural  and  Educational  Experiments  at  Neuhof,  1767,     ....        -  56 

III.  The  Evening  Hour  of  a  Hermit,  1780, 59 

IV.  Leonard  and  Gertrude,  1781. 62 

V.  Life  and  Writings  between  1781  and  1798, 65 

VI.  Experience  at  Sfanz.  1798, 68 

VII.  "               Burgdorf,  1799-1804, 71 

VIII.  '«               Buchsee,  1804, 87 

IX.  "               Yverdun,  1805, 87 

X.  Last  Years,  1815-1827, 115 

XI.  Relations  to  Christianity, 116 

XII.  Retrospect, 123 

APPENDIX.    By  the  American  Editor, 1^7 

Celebration  of  Pestalozzi's  Centennial  Birth-day  in  Germany  and  Switzerland,      •  129 

List  of  Publications  by  Pestalozzi, 139 

List  of  Publications  in  different  languages  on  Pestalozzi  and  his  Educational  Prin- 
ciples and  Methods, 142 

BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCHES  of  several  of  the  assistants  and  disciples  of  Pestalozzi.   -       -  145 

Preface, 149 

I.  Johannes  Niederer, 151 

II.  Hermann  Kriisi, 161 

III.  Johannes  Buss, 193 

IV.  Joseph  Schmid, 202 

V.  John  George  Tobler. 205 

VI.  John  Ramsauer,       ' 213 

VII.  John  Ernst  Plamann, 217 

IX.  Hans  George  Nageli. 220 

X.  Johannes  Harnisch. 221 

XI.  Karl  Augustus  Zeller. 223 

XII.  Charles  Christian  Wilhelm  von  Turk, 155 

yill.  Hern  hard  Gottlieb  Denzel, 227 

XIV.  Friedrich  Adolf  Wilhelm  Diesterweg, 229 

Gustavus  Frederick  Dinter, 232 

PART  II. 

SELECTIONS  FROM  THE  PUBLICATIONS  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

Preface, 1 

I.  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE;    or  a  Book  for  the  People,     As  tirst  published  in 

German  in  1781, - 9 

Notice  of  subsequent  additions,         ..........  135 

The  School  in  Bonnal, 137 

II     CHRISTOPHER   AND   ALICE,      -           -                      - 151 

School  and  Home  Education  compared, 151 

III.  THE  EVENIN  ;  HOUR  OF  A  HERMIT.     The  Programme  or  Key  to  Pestalozzi's  Edu- 

cational Labors.     First  published  in  German  in  1780, 154 

IV.  A  CHRISTMAS  EVE.  DISCOURSE.    Delivered  by  Pestalozzi  to  his  Family  School 

on  the  24th  of  December,  J8jO, 166 

V.  NEW  YEARS  ADDRESS,  180^, 175 

VI.  SEVENTY-SECOND  BIRTHDAY  ADDRESS. 178 

VII.  How  GERTRUDE  TEACHES  HER  CHILDREN,        -        -        •  « 171 

Notice, 183 

Pestalozzi.  account  of  his  educational  experience, 185 

Methods  of  Elementary  Instruction, 189 

Modifications  of.  bv  Bnttsh  Home  and  Colonial  Infant  and  Juvenile  Sch'l  Society,  217 
VIII.  PATEUNAL  INSTRUCTIONS.     A  Ikijut.-t  <>f  Fatlp  r  Ptstalozzi  to  his  Pupils.    Edited 

by  Kriisi.    Extracts, 228 


PART   I. 
MEMOIR  OF  PESTALOZZ1. 

Slsststnnts  ttttfo  Bisriphs  nf  |<tstnlnj)i. 


PESTALOZZI'S  EDUCATIONAL  LABORS  FOR  THE  POOR, 


AND   FOR 

POPULAR  SCHOOLS. 


"  IT  is  to  the  charitable  efforts  of  Pestalozzi" — remarks  M.  Demetz, 
the  founder  of  the  most  complete  and  successful  institution  of  reformatory 
education  in  the  world,  in  a  report  on  the  Agricultural  Reformatory  Colo- 
nies of  France, — "  that  we  owe  the  establishment  of  agricultural  colonies," 
that  is,  of  institutions,  organized  on  the  basis,  and  in  the  spirit  of  the 
family,  with  agricultural  employment  as  the  principal  means  of  industrial 
training,  and  with  methods  of  instruction,  moral,  intellectual,  and  physi- 
cal, so  far  as  applied,  good  enough  for  children  of  any  class  of  society, 
and  yet  capable  of  being  followed  by  an  intelligent  mother  in  the  home 
of  the  poor.  Not  that  Pestalozzi's  own  plans  and  methods  under  his 
own  application,  were  eminently  successful— for  they  were  not.  His  in- 
stitution at  Neuhof,  was  a  disastrous  failure,  in  its  immediate  results,  both 
as  a  school,  and  as  a  pecuniary  speculation.  But  the  Christian  spirit  in 
which  this  excellent  man  labored — the  family  organization  into  which  he 
gathered,  even  the  outcasts  of  society,  living  among  such  pupils  as  a  father, 
as  well  as  pastor  and  teacher,  and  denying  himself  the  quiet  seclusion 
and  comforts  of  the  home  which  the  fortune  of  his  noble  minde'd  wife  had 
secured  for  him,  that  he  might  inspire  the  orphan,  and  the  abandoned  and 
even  criminal  child  with  filial  attachments,  cultivate  habits  of  self-reliance 
and  profitable  industry,  and  thus  enable  them  "  to  live  in  the  world  like 
men" — this  spirit,  system  and  aim,  the  dream  and  labor  of  his  long  and 
troubled  life,  imperfectly  inaugurated  at  Neuhof,  and  never  fully  realized 
at  Stanz,  Burgdorf,  and  Yverden,  but  widely  diffused  by  his  writings, 
and  the  better  success,  under  more  favorable  conditions,  of  his  pupils  and 
disciples  in  Switzerland  and  German}^  have  led  to  the  establishment  of 
new  educational  institutions  for  rich  and  poor,  of  schools  of  practical 
agriculture,  as  well  as  of  agricultural  reformatories,  and  at  the  same  time 
has  regenerated  the  methods  of  popular  education  generally.  To  the  con- 
nected and  comprehensive  survey  of  Pestalozzi's  Life  and  Educational 
System  by  von  Kaumer,  we  add  a  notice  of  his  labors  at  Neuhof  by  Dr. 
Blochmann,  of  Dresden,  and  by  Dr.  Diesterweg,  of  Berlin,  from  discourses 
pronounced  on  the  occasion  of  the  Centennial  celebration  of  Pestalozzi's 
birth-day  on  the  12th  of  January,  1846. 

PESTALOZZI'S  POOR  SCHOOL  AT  NEUHOF. 

PESTALOZZI  having  failed  in  a  plantation  of  madder  which  he  had  com- 
menced in  connection  with  a  mercantile  house  of  Zurich,  on  an  estate  of 
about  one  hundred  acres  of  land  on  which  he  commenced  a  house  in  the 


12  PFDTALOZZI'S  POOR  SCHOOL  AT  NEUHOF. 

"Itklian  Vfila  style,  to  which  he  gave  the  name  of  Neuhof,  projected  the 
plan  of  an  educational  establishment  respecting  which  Dr.  Blochmann,* 
an  admiring  pupil  and  avowed  follower  thus  writes : 

It  was  not  in  Pestalozzi's  nature  to  sink  under  misfortune,  so  long  as  he 
could  pursue  the  attainment  of  the  object  of  his  life.  He  had  early  learned 
and  deeply  fixed  in  his  mind  the  maxim, 

"  Tu  ne  cede  mails,  sed  contra  fortior  ito." 

He  advanced  like  a  roused  lion,  with  resolute  courage,  against  all 
unfriendly  influences.  In  spite  of  the  severe  distress  into  which  the 
unforseen  withdrawal  of  the  Zurich  house  plunged  him,  he  determined  to 
go  on,  and  to  make  his  landed  estate  the  centre  of  operations  for  his 
educational  and  agricultural  plans.  He  resolved  even  upon  more  and 
higher  designs.  Henceforward  he  will  live  amongst  beggar  children,  and 
share  his  bread  in  poverty  amongst  them ;  will  live  like  a  beggar  himself, 
that  he  may  learn  to  teach  beggars  to  live  like  men. 

He  also  proposed  to  render  his  establishment  an  institution  for  the 
poor.  This  undertaking  attracted  attention.  It  was  considered  a  noble 
and  benevolent  enterprise ;  and  his  views  and  principles  had  so  much 
influence,  in  spite  of  the  mistrust  of  his  practical  ability,  that  he  found 
assistance  in  Zurich,  Bern  and  Basle,  and  was  able  without  much  diffi- 
culty to  obtain  the  necessary  funds  for  the  institution,  by  the  aid  of  a 
loan,  for  several  years,  without  interest.  His  friends  on  all  sides  assisted 
him  ;  more  especially  Iselin  of  Basle,  whom  he  had  met  and  known  in 
the  Helvetic  Diet,  and  who  introduced  the  beloved  enterprise  to  public 
notice  in  his  Ephemerides. 

The  Institution  for  the  Poor  at  Neuhof  was  opened  in  1775.  Poor 
children  flocked  in  from  all  directions,  many  of  them  gathered  by 
Pestalozzi  himself  from  their  misery,  and  out  of  the  streets.  He  had 
soon  fifty  children,  whom  he  kept  busy  in  summer' with  field  labor,  and 
in  winter  with  spinning  and  other  handicrafts,  instructing  them  all  the 
time,  and  developing  and  clearing  up  their  mental  faculties,  especially  by 
oral  recitations  and  mental  arithmetic.!  Pestalozzi  had  early  perceived 

''HENRY  PESTALOZZI.  Touches  at  a  Picture  of  his  Life  and  Labors  :  from  his  own  testi- 
mony, from  observation,  and  communication.  By  Dr.  Karl  Justus  Blochmann,  Privy  School 
Councilor  and  Professor :  Leipsic.  1846. 

t  The  idea  of  such  a  school  for  the  poor,  in  which  agricultural  and  industrial  labor  were  to 
De  combined  with  instruction,  accompanied  Pestalozzi.  to  whose  mind  it  was  so  new  and 
stimulating,  all  his  life  ;  and  even  remained  like  a  sunbeam  shining  from  behind  the  dark  sad 
clouds  of  the  past,  his  last  love,  his  last  active  desire.  What,  however,  he  never  completely 
accomplished,  has  been  done  by  Emanuel  von  Fellenberg,  who  was  assisted  in  the  work,  not 
only  by  his  certain  and  practical  skill  and  experience,  but  especially  by  his  good  fortune  in  dis- 
covering in  Vehrli,  such  a  man  as  is  very  seldom  to  be  found,  but  absolutely  necessary  in  the 
actual  realization  of  such  a  school.  Whoever,  like  myself — and  there  are  thousands— has  be- 
tome  thoroughly  acquainted  with  Vehrli's  school  in  Hofwyl,  must  be  convinced  that  in  institu- 
tions for  the  education  of  the  poor  so  organized,  conducted  in  such  a  spirit,  with  such  love 
and  self-sacrifice,  there  is  to  be  found  an  inestimable  blessing  for  the  state  and  the  people.  Fel- 
.enberg  has  shown  from  his  account  books,  that  a  poor  boy,  received  at  his  ninth  year,  and  re- 
maining in  the  institution  through  his  eighteenth,  pays  by  his  labor  during  the  last  half  of  his 
stay,  for  the  excess  of  the  expense  of  maintaining  him  over  his  earnings,  during  the  first  half. 
Lange,  in  his  work  on  "The  Country  Educational  Institutions  for  Poor  Children,"  (Landlicla 
Erziehungs  Anstalten  fur  Armenkinder,)  has  made  very  thorough  researches  into  this 


PESTALOZZI'S  POOR  SCHOOL  AT  NEUHOF.  ]  g 

that  in  the  nature  of  every  man  are  innate  powers  and  means  sufficient 
to  assure  him  an  adequate  support ;  and  that  the  hindrances  arising  from 
exterior  circumstances,  to  the  development  of  the  natural  endowments, 
are  not  in  their  nature  insuperable. 

The  usual  means  of  benevolence  and  mercy  (as  he  was  accustomed  to 
name  the  orphan  houses,  institutions  for  supporting  the  poor,  &c.,  of  the 
period,)  seemed  to  him  to  stimulate  and  encourage  the  evil,  instead 
of  helping  it.  The  thousand  public  and  private  ways  of  spending  alms, 
with  which  the  times  were  crowded  to  nauseation,  the  beggar  making 
and  hypocrite  training  modes  of  assisting  the  poor,  seemed  to  him  only 
a  palliative.  The  only  means  of  affording  real  assistance  he  saw  to  lie  in 
this  ;  that  the  inborn  natural  powers  of  every  man  to  provide  for  his  own 
necessities,  and  sufficiently  to  perform  the  business,  duties  and  obligations 
of  his  being,  should  be  developed,  encouraged,  and  set  upon  an  independ- 
ent  footing.  With  this  conviction  the  impulse  increased  within  him  to 
labor  for  this  definite  purpose  ;  that  it  should  become  practicable  for  the 
poorest  in  the  land  to  be  assured  of  the  development  of  their  bodily, 
spiritual  and  moral  powers  both  in  relation  to  their  own  characters,  and 
to  their  personal,  domestic  and  social  relations  ;  and  through  this  devel- 
opment to  obtain  the  sure  basis  of  a  peaceful  and  sufficient  means 
of  existence.  He  had  already  taken  the  first  step  in  this  direction,  by 
admitting  into  his  house  beggar  children  and  others  abandoned  to  neglect, 
that  he  might  rescue  them  from  their  debasing  condition,  lead  them  back 
to  manhood  and  a  higher  destiny,  and  thus  prove  to  himself  and  those 
around  him  more  and  more  clearly  the  truth  of  his  opinion.  His  institu- 
tion was  to  comprise  the  means  for  a  sufficient  instruction  in  field  labor, 
in  domestic  work,  and  in  associated  industry.  This  was  not,  however, 
the  ultimate  purpose.  That  was,  a  training  to  manhood  ;  and  for  it, 
these  other  departments  were  only  preparatory. 

First  of  all,  he  proposed  to  train  his  poor  children  to  exertion  and  self- 
control,  by  forbearing  and  assiduous  discipline,  and  by  the  ever  powerful 
stimulus  of  love.  He  aimed  to  possess  himself  of  their  hearts,  and  from 
that  starting  point  to  bring  them  to  the  consciousness  and  the  attainment 
of  every  thing  noble  and  great  in  humanity.  "  I  had  from  my  youth  "  he 
says,  "a  high  instinctive  value  of  the  influence  of  domestic  training 
in  the  education  of  poor  children,  and  likewise  a  decided  preference 
for  field  labor,  as  the  most  comprehensive  and  unobjectionable  external 
basis  for  this  training,  and  also  for  another  reason  :  as  it  is  the  condition 
of  the  manufacturing  population  which  is  increasing  so  rapidly  amongst 
us,  who,  abandoned  to  the  operations  of  a  mercantile  and  speculating 

subject,  not  only  from  other  writings  upon  institutions  for  the  poor  after  the  model  of  Fellen- 
berg's,  but  from  his  own  repeated  and  extensive  travels  and  personal  observation.  Our  own 
teacher's  association  (p'ddagogische  rerein,  at  Dresden,)  has  proposed  as  a  chief  aim  of  ifs 
practical  efforts,  the  realization  of  an  institution  for  the  education  of  poor  and  abandoned 
children,  after  Pestalozzi's  model ;  for  which  purpose,  it  purchased  some  eight  years  since,  a 
property  in  great  part  already  in  cultivation,  and  with  a  roomy  mansion  house,  near  the 
Lb'btaner  Schlage,  which  was  dedicated  on  the  12th  of  January,  1845,  by  the  name  of  the 
Pestalozzi  Foundation,  (Pestaiozzi  Stiftung.) 


'S  POOR  SCHOOL  AT  NEUHOF. 


interest,  wholly  destitute  of  humanity,  are  in  danger,  in  case  of  unforseeii 
accident,  of  being  able  to  find  within  themselves  no  means  of  escape  from 
entire  ruin.*  Full  of  a  love  for  my  father-land,  which  hoped  for  it  almost 
impossible  things,  and  longed  to  lead  it  back  to  its  native  dignity  and 
power,  I  sought  with  the  greatest  activity  not  only  for  the  possible  but  for 
the  certain  means  of  averting  the  coming  evil,  and  of  awakening  anew  the 
remainder  of  the  ancient  home  happiness,  home  industry,  and  home 
manners.  These  designs  sank  deep  into  my  heart  and  often  made 
me  feel  with  sorrow  what  a  high  and  indispensable  human  duty  it  is 
to  labor  for  the  poor  and  miserable,  with  all  the  means  which  our 
race  possesses,  in  church,  state  or  individuals,  that  he  may  attain  to  a 
consciousness  of  his  Own  dignity  through  his  feeling  of  the  universal  pow- 
ers and  endowments  which  he  possesses,  awakened  within  him ;  that  he 
may  not  only  learn  to  gabble  over  by  rote  the  religious  maxim  that  *  man  is 
created  in  the  image  of  God,  and  is  bound  to  live  and  die  as  the  child  of 
God,'  but  may  himself  experience  its  truth  by  virtue  of  the  divine 
power  within  him,  so  that  he  may  be  irresistibly  and  really  elevated  not 
only  above  the  ploughing  oxen,  but  above  the  man  in  purple  and  silk, 
who  lives  unworthily  of  his  high  destiny." 

With  such  lofty  and  magnificent  views,  and  with  a  heart  at  even 
a  higher  level  of  love,  Pestalozzi  labored  at  Neuhof  from  sunrise  to  sunset, 
amongst  his  beggar  children.  He  lived  steadily  up  to  his  principles, 
laboring  in  his  vocation  to  the  full  extent  of  his  powers ;  always  knew 
what  he  was  seeking,  cared  not  for  the  morrow,  but  felt  from  moment  to 
moment  the  needs  of  the  present.  Among  his  children  were  very  many 
ungovernable  ones  of  a  better  class,  and  still  worse,  many  who  had 
brought  themselves  from  a  better  condition  to  beggary,  and  who  were 
presumptuous  and  pretentious  by  reason  of  their  former  situation  ;  to 
whom  the  energetic  discipline  which  he  applied,  according  to  his  design, 
was  at  first  hateful.  They  considered  their  situation  with  him  as  more 
degrading  than  that  in  which  they  had  been  before.  Neuhof  was  full 
every  Sunday  of  the  mothers  and  relatives  of  children  who  found 
their  situation  not  what  they  had  expected.  All  the  impertinences 
which  a  miserable  rabble  of  beggars  could  indulge  in  a  house  without 
visible  protection  or  imposing  exterior,  were  practiced,  to  encourage  the 
children  in  their  discontent ;  even  so  far  that  they  were  often  tempted  to 
run  away  by  night  just  after  they  had  been  washed  clean  and  clad 
in  their  Sunday  clothes.  However,  these  difficulties  would  little  by  little 

*  Upon  the  influence  of  manufacturing  wealth  amongst  the  Swiss  at  that  time,  Pestalozzi 
expresses  himself  thus  in  another  place  :  "  The  paternal  love  of  the  upper  and  the  filial  love 
of  the  lower  classes,  in  consequence  of  the  increase  of  the  manufacturing  interest,  is  going 
more  and  more  to  ruin  under  the  effects  of  ignoble  wealth.  The  blinding  height  of  arro- 
gance derived  from  an  eminent  position  obtained  by  money,  the  deceitful  cornucopia  of  an 
unreliable  life  of  mere  pleasure,  has  drawn  all  within  its  destructive  influence,  even  down  to 
the  commonest  of  the  people,  and  carried  them  into  the  crooked  path  of  a  spiritless  and  pow- 
erless routine  life.  Truth,  honor,  sympathy,  moderation,  are  daily  vanishing.  Pride, 
insolence,  recklessness,  contemptnousness,  laxity,  immorality,  the  eager  pursuit  of  vain  and 
ostentatious  pleasure,  the  cherishing  of  boundless  selfishness,  have  taken  the  place  of  the 
ancient  simplicity,  faith  and  honor. 


TESTALOZZrS  POOR  SCHOOL  AT  NEUIIOF.  J5 

have  been  overcome,  had  not  Pestalozzi  pushed  his  undertaking  to 
an  extent  altogether  beyond  his  means,  and  undertaken  to  modify  it 
according  to  the  original  design,  which  supposed  the  possession  of 
the  utmost  knowledge  of  manufacturing  and  of  human  nature;  qualities 
in  which  he  was  lacking  in  the  same  measure  in  which  he  needed  them 
urgently  for  managing  his  institution.  Moreover,  he  hurried  on  to 
the  higher  branches  of  instruction,  before  supplying  the  solid  foundation 
of  acquaintance  with  the  lower;  an  error  recognized  as  the  leading 
one  of  the  teaching  of  the  age,  against  which  he  had  striven  in  his 
scheme  of  education  with  all  his  strength.  For  the  sake  of  a  fallacious 
prospect  of  greater  profit,  in  higher  branches  of  industry,  he  committed, 
in  teaching  his  children  to  spin  and  weave,  the  very  faults  which  he  had 
so  strongly  abjured  in  all  his  expressed  opinions  upon  education,  and 
which  he  saw  to  be  so  dangerous  to  children  of  all  classes.  He  would 
attempt  to  secure  the  finest  spinning,  before  his  children  had  acquired 
even  a  small  amount  of  firmness  and  surety  of  hand  in  coarse  work ;  and 
undertook  to  manufacture  muslin  before  his  weavers  had  attained  skill  in 
weaving  common  cotton  stuff. 

Through  these  and  the  like  mistakes,  through  his  ignorance  of 
business,  and  his  great  lack  of  a  sound  practical  faculty  of  learning  it,  it 
happened  that  Pestalozzi  fell  every  year  deeper  in  debts  ;  and  when  these 
also  from  time  to  time  had  been  paid  by  the  self-sacrificing  generosity  of 
his  noble  wife,  there  came  at  last  an  end  of  this  means  of  help,  and  in  a 
few  years  the  greater  part  of  his  substance  and  his  expected  inheritance 
was  dissolved  into  smoke.  The  great  confidence  which  he  had  enjoyed 
among  his  neighbors,  changed  when  his  undertaking  failed  so  soon,  into 
an  utter  and  blind  rejection  of  any  shadow  even  of  faith  in  his  enterprise, 
or  of  belief  in  his  possessing  any  capacity  at  all  as  a  teacher.  But  such 
is  the  way  of  the  world  ;  it  treated  Pestalozzi,  when  poor,  as  it  treats  all 
who  become  poor  by  their  own  faults.  Their  money  being  gone,  it  with- 
draws also  its  confidence  from  them,  in  matters  where  they  really  are 
capable  and  efficient. 

His  enterprise  failed,  in  a  manner  excessively  painful,  both  to  himself 
and  his  wife,  in  the  year  1780,  in  the  fifth  year  of  its  existence.  His 
misfortune  was  complete ;  he  was  now  poor.  He  felt  most  deeply  the 
condition  of  his  noble  hearted  wife,  who  in  the  excess  of  her  devotion  had 
mortgaged  away  for  him  nearly  all  her  possessions.  His  situation  was 
indeed  shocking.  In  his  over  handsome  country  house,  he  was  often 
destitute  of  bread,  wood,  and  a  few  pennies,  wherewith  to  defend  himself 
from  cold  and  hunger.  Only  the  entire  forbearance  of  his  creditors  and 
the  kind  help  of  his  friends  preserved  him  from  despair  and  entire  ruin. 

Thus  he  lived  a  poor  and  destitute  life  in  Ncuhof  for  eighteen  years, 
fighting  with  want  and  misery.  He  lived  as  a  poor  man  amongst  the 
poor ;  suffered  what  the  common  people  suffered,  and  saw  what  they 
were.  He  studied  the  wants  of  the  lower  classes  and  the  sources  of  their 
misery,  in  a  manner  which  would  have  been  impossible  for  one  in  better 
circumstances. 


PESTALOZZI  AND  THE  SCHOOLS  OF  GERMANY. 

FROM   THE    GERMAN    OF    DR.    DIEBTERWEG. 


EVERY  one  considers  it  a  matter  of  course  that  all  our  children  go  to 
school  until  they  grow  up  to  be  youths  and  maidens.  The  observance 
of  this  custom  begins  at  the  sixth  year.  But  the  parents  have  long  be- 
fore spoken  of  the  school  to  the  child ;  he  looks  eagerly  forward  to  the 
day  of  entrance ;  and  when  it  takes  place,  he  is  absorbed  in  his  school 
and  his  teacher  for  the  next  six  or  eight  years  or  more.  We  always 
think  of  children  and  schools  or  children  and  books  together.  To  be  a 
child  and  to  learn,  have  become  almost  synonymous  terms.  To  find 
children  in  school,  or  passing  along  the  streets  with  the  apparatus  which 
they  use  there,  makes  no  one  wonder.  It  is  only  the  reverse,  which  at- 
tracts attention.  The  school  fills  a  very  important  part  in  the  life  of  the 
young.  In  fact  school  life  is  almost  the  whole  life  of  childhood  and 
youth ;  we  can  hardly  conceive  of  them  without  it.  Without  school, 
without  education,  what  would  parents  do  with  their  children  ?  With- 
out them,  where  would  they  secure  the  young  the  necessary  preparation 
for  actual  life  ? 

With  our  present  organization  of  society,  schools  are  indispensable 
institutions.  Many  others  may  perish  in  the  course  of  time ;  many  have 
already  perished ;  but  schools  abide,  and  increase.  Where  they  do  not 
exist,  we  expect  barbarity  and  ignorance ;  where  they  flourish,  civiliza- 
tion and  knowledge. 

No  apology  is  necessary  for  sending  our  children  to  school.  At  school 
they  learn.  There  they  acquire  mental  activity  and  knowledge ;  the 
manifold  varieties  of  things ;  to  gain  the  knowledge  of  things  in  heaven 
above  and  in  the  earth  beneath,  and  under  the  earth ;  of  stones,  and 
plants,  and  animals,  and  men ;  of  past,  present,  and  future. 

[The  remainder  of  the  discourse  treats  of  three  points : — 

1.  What  were  the  schools  before  Pestalozzi? 

2.  What  did  they  become  by  his  means,  and  since ;  that  is,  what  are 
they  now  ? 

3.  What  was  Pestalozzi's  life  and  labors  ?] 

I.    THE  OLD  SCHOOLS. 

Our  present  system  of  common  or  public  schools — that  is  schools 
which  are  open  to  all  children  under  certain  regulations — date  from  the 
discovery  of  printing  in  1436,  when  books  began  to  be  furnished  so 
cheaply  that  the  poor  could  buy  them.  Especially  after  Martin  Luther 
had  translated  the  Bible  into  German,  and  the  desire  to  possess  and  un- 
derstand that  invaluable  book  became  universal,  did  there  also  become 
universal  the  desire  to  know  how  to  read.  Men  sought  to  learn,  not  only 
for  the  sake  of  reading  the  Scriptures,  but  also  to  be  able  to  read  and 


PESTALOZZI  AND  THE  POPULAR  SCHOOL.  J7 

sing  the  psalms,  and  to  learn  the  catechism.  For  this  purpose  schools 
for  children  were  established,  which  were  essentially  reading  schools. 
Reading  was  the  first  and  principal  study ;  next  came  singing,  and  then 
memorizing  texts,  songs,  and  the  catechism.  At  first  the  ministers 
taught;  but  afterward  the  duty  was  turned  over  to  the  inferior  church 
officers,  the  choristers  and  sextons.  Their  duties  as  choristers  and  sex- 
tons were  paramount,  and  as  schoolmasters  only  secondary.  The  chil- 
dren paid  a  small  monthly  .fee ;  no  more  being  thought  necessary,  since 
the  schoolmaster  derived  a  salary  from  the  church. 

Nobody  either  made  or  knew  how  to  make  great  pretensions  to  educa- 
tional skill.  If  the  teacher  communicated  to  his  scholars  the  acquire- 
ments above  mentioned,  and  kept  them  in  order,  he  gave  satisfaction ; 
and  no  one  thought  any  thing  about  separate  institutions  for  school  chil- 
dren. There  were  no  school  books  distinctively  so  called  ;  the  children\ 
learned  their  lessons  in  the  Bible  or  the  Psalter,  and  read  either  in  the  Old 
or  the  New  Testament.  -. 

Each  child  read  by  himself;  the  simultaneous  method  was  not  known. 
One  after  another  stepped  up  to  the  table  where  the  master  sat.  He 
pointed  out  one  letter  at  a  time,  and  named  it ;  the  child  named  it  after 
him  ;  he  drilled  him  in  recognizing  and  remembering  each.  Then  they 
took  letter  by  letter  of  the  words,  and  by  getting  acquainted  with  them 
in  this  way,  the  child  gradually  learned  to  read.  This  was  a  difficult 
method  for  him ;  a  very  difficult  one.  Years  usually  passed  before  any 
facility  had  been  acquired ;  many  did  not  learn  in  four  years.  It  was 
imitative  and  purely  mechanical  labor  on  both  sides.  To  understand 
what  was  read  was  seldom  thought  of.  The  syllables  were  pronounced 
with  equal  force,  and  the  reading  was  without  grace  or  expression. 

Where  it  was  possible,  but  unnaturally  and  mechanically,  learning  by 
heart  was  practiced.  The  children  drawled  out  texts  of  Scripture, 
psalms,  and  the  contents  of  the  catechism  from  the  beginning  to  end ; 
short  questions  and  long  answers  alike,  all  in  the  same  monotonous  man- 
ner. Anybody  with  delicate  ears  who  heard  the  sound  once,  would  re- 
member it  all  his  life  long.  There  are  people  yet  living,  who  were  taught 
in  that  unintelligent  way,  who  can  corroborate  these  statements.  Of  the 
actual  contents  of  the  words  whose  sounds  they  had  thus  barely  commit- 
ted to  memory  by  little  and  little,  the  children  knew  absolutel}r  almost 
nothing.  They  learned  superficially  and  understood  superficially.  Noth- 
ing really  passed  into  their  minds  ;  at  least  nothing  during  their  school 
years. 

The  instruction  in  singing  was  no  better.     The  master  sang  to  them 
the  psalm-tunes  over  and  over,   until  they  could  sing  them,  or  rather^ 
screech  them,  after  him. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  instruction  in  our  schools  during  the  six- 
teenth, seventeenth,  and  two-thirds  of  the  eighteenth  centuries  ;  confined 
to  one  or  two  studies,  and  those  taught  in  the  most  imperfect  and  mechan- 
ical way. 

It  was  natural  that  youth  endowed,  when  healthy,  with  an  ever  increas-^ 

2 


18  PESTALOZZI  AND  THE  POPULAR  SCHOOL. 

ing  capacity  for  pleasure  in  living,  should  feel  the  utmost  reluctance  at 
attending  school.  To  be  employed  daily,  for  three  or  four  hours,  or 
more,  in  this  mechanical  toil,  was  no  light  task  ;  and  it  therefore  became 
necessary  to  force  the  children  to  sit  still,  and  study  their  lessons.  Dur- 
ing all  that  time,  especially  in  the  seventeenth  century,  during  the  fearful 
thirty  years'  war,  and  subsequently,  as  the  age  was  sunk  in  barbarism,  the 
children  of  course  entered  the  schools  ignorant  and  untrained.  "  As  the 
old  ones  sung,  so  twittered  the  young."  /Stern  severity  and  cruel 
punishments  were  the  order  of  the  day ;  and  by  them  the  children  were  kept 
in  order.  Parents  governed  children  too  young  to  attend,  by  threats  of 
the  schoolmaster  and  the  school ;  and  when  they  went,  it  was  with  fear 
and  trembling.  The  rod,  the  cane,  the  raw-hide,  were  necessary  appara- 
tus in  each  school.  The  punishments  of  the  teacher  exceeded  those  of  a 
prison.  Kneeling  on  peas,  sitting  in  the  shame-bench,  standing  in  the 
pillory,  wearing  an  ass-cap,  standing  before  the  school  door  in  the  open 
street  with  a  label  on  the  back  or  breast,  and  other  similar  devices,  were 
the  remedies  which  the  rude  men  of  the  age  devised.  To  name  a  single 
example  of  a  boy  whom  all  have  heard  of,  of  high  gifts,  and  of  reputable 
family, — Dr.  Martin  Luther  reckoned  up  fifteen  or  sixteen  times  that  he 
was  whipped  upon  the  back  in  one  forenoon.  The  learning  and  the  train- 
ing corresponds  ;  the  one  was  strictly  a  mechanical  process  ;  the  other, 
only  bodily  punishments/What  wonder  that  from  such  schools  there 
came  forth  a  rude  generation  ;  that  men  and  women  looked  back  all  their 
lives  to  the  school  as  to  a  dungeon,  and  to  the  teacher  as  a  taskmaster, 
and  jailer ;  that  the  schoolmaster  was  of  a  small  repute ;  that  under- 
strappers were  selected  for  school  duty  and  school  discipline  ;  that  dark, 
cold  kennels  were  used  for  school-rooms ;  that  the  schoolmaster's  place 
especially  in  the  country,  was  assigned  him  amongst  the  servants  and 
the  like. 

This  could  not  last ;  it  has  not,  thank  God !  When  and  by  what 
efforts  of  admirable  men  the  change  took  place,  I  shall  relate  a  little  on. 
Let  us  now  look  at  the  present. 

II.     THE  MODERN  SCHOOLS. 

What  are  our  schools  in  this  present  fifth  decade  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  what  are  they  from  year  to  year  growing  to  be  ?  Upon  this 
subject  I  can  of  course  only  give  my  readers  a  fresher  and  livelier  im- 
pression of  matters  which  they  already  understand.  I  begin  with  the 
exterior — not  only  every  town,  but  every  village  of  our  father-land  has  at 
present  its  own  school-houses.  They  are  usually  so  noticeable  for  archi- 
tecture, airiness  and  dimensions,  as  to  be  recognized  at  the  first  glance. 
The  districts  often  compete  amicably  with  each  other  in  their  appearance, 
and  make  great  sacrifices  for  superiority. 

In  the  school-house  resides  the  teacher  ;  a  man  who  is  often  an  object 
of  the  ridicule  of  the  young,  but  who,  if  really  a  teacher,  deserves  and 
possesses  the  respect  of  the  old.  Many  of  course  fail  to  obtain  an  ade- 
quate reward,  especially  for  their  highest  aspirations,  in  their  important 


PESTALOZZI  AND  THE  POPULAR  SCHOOL.  JQ 

calling ;  but  their  internal  sources  of  satisfaction  increase  from  day  to 
day,  in  the  power  of  lifting  them  above  the  depressing  and  wearing 
cares  of  their  office.  The  conviction  is  daily  gaining  ground,  that  "  what 
men  do  to  the  teacher,  they  are  doing  to  their  own  children."  The  teach- 
er is  an  educated  man.  He  is  trained  in  seminaries  established  and  main- 
tained for  the  purpose  by  the  state.  The  time  is  past  when  teaching  was 
practiced  along  with  some  handicraft ;  now  undivided  strength  is  devoted 
to  it.  How  deeply  teachers  are  themselves  impressed  with  the  import- 
ance, and  engaged  in  the  work,  of  steadily  and  continually  improving 
themselves,  is  shown  in  the  zeal  with  which  they  organize  and  maintain 
reading  societies  and  associations  for  improvement. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  interior  condition  of  the  school,  and  observe 
its  instruction : — 

The  children  are  kept  quiet  far  otherwise  than  by  blows.  Each  sits  in 
his  own  place,  busy  at  his  lessons.  Nowhere  in  the  light,  roomy  and 
cleanly  school  rooms  or  halls  is  there  any  interruption,  or  any  thing 
that  could  interrupt  the  attention  of  the  young  students.  The  walls  are 
adorned  with  all  manner  of  apparatus. 

Far  otherwise  than  by  blows  is  the  intercourse  between  teacher  and 
children  characterized.  He  greets  them  with  a  friendly  word,  and  they 
him  by  rising  up.  He  opens  school  with  a  prayer,  and  a  hymn  follows, 
sung  well  and  sweetly.  Now  begins  the  business  of  instruction.  All  are 
earnest  in  it ;  every  one  has  his  work  to  do.  There  is  no  longer  more 
than  a  slight  trace  of  the  plan  of  single  instruction.  All  learn  together 
every  thing  that  is  taught.  Formerly  the  only  thing  taught  to  all  was  to 
read,  and  that  by  rote  ;  for  writing  and  arithmetic  were  required  an  ex- 
tra payment ;  now,  their  work  is  regulated  by  a  carefully  considered  plan 
of  study,  prepared  by  the  teacher  and  superintending  authorities  of  the 
school,  which  includes  all  subjects  essential  to  the  attainments  of  all ;  all 
the  elements,  that  is  of  a  general  education. 

At  the  head  of  all  instruction  is  that  concerning  God's  providence  and 
man's  destiny  ;  in  religion  and  virtue.  To  instruct  the  children  in  these 
great  truths,  to  lay  the  secure  foundation  of  fixed  religious  habits,  is  the 
highest  aim  of  the  teacher.  Maxims,  songs,  &c.,  chosen  with  wise  fore- 
sight, are  ineradicably  planted  in  his  memory  ,and  become  a  rich  treasure 
to  the  scholar  in  after  life.  The  singing  as  a  part  of  the  religious  exer- 
cises. In  solo,  duet,  or  chorus,  the  scholars  sing  to  the  edification  of  all 
who  take  pleasure  in  well  doing.  They  also  learn  secular  songs,  suitable 
in  words  and  melody,  and  promotive  of  social  good  feeling. 

The  second  chief  subject  of  school  instruction  is  reading.  One  who 
can  not  read  easily,  loses  the  principal  means  of  acquiring  knowledge 
during  his  future  life.  And  how  is  it  taught  ?  The  frightful  old-fashioned 
drawl  is  done  away  with  even  to  its  last  vestiges.  Children  now  read, 
after  two  years'  regular  school  attendance,  not  only  fluently,  but  with 
just  tone  and  accent,  in  such  wise  as  to  show  that  they  understand  and 
feel  what  they  read.  Is  not  that  alone  an  immeasurable  advance  ? 

Formerly,  the  children  studied  each  by  himself,  and  where  they  barely 


20  PESTALOZZI  AND   THE  POPULAR  SCHOOL. 

learned  to  write  by  continual  repetition  of  the  letters  and  long  practice, 
they  now  acquire  facility  in  noting  down  and  drawing  up  in  the  form  of 
a  composition,  whatever  they  think  or  know.  From  the  beginning,  they 
are  invariably  trained  to  recite  distinctly  and  correctly,  speaking  with 
proper  tone,  and  as  nearly  as  possible  all  together.  This  exercise  has  com- 
pletely proved  for  the  first  time,  how  important  it  is  that  the  teacher 
should  understand  and  observe  the  rules  of  syntax  and  correct  speaking. 
In  this  point,  our  present  school  instruction  is  an  entirely  new  art.  The 
old-fashioned  teachers  themselves  could  scarely  read ;  now,  the  scholars 
learn  it. 

It  is  needless  to  detail  all  that  remains ;  the  entire  revolution  in  teach- 
ing arithmetic,  where,  for  unintelligent  rule-work,  has  been  substituted 
the  means  of  developing  the  intellect,  inasmuch  that  the  scholars  can  not 
only  reckon  easily  both  mentally  and  in  writing,  but  can  also  understand, 
judge,  and  form  conclusions.  It  is  needless  to  detail  the  instruction*  in 
the  miscellaneous  departments  of  geography,  history,  natural  history, 
popular  astronomy,  physics,  &c.,  which  is  intended  for  every  man  who 
pretends,  even  to  the  beginning  of  an  education,  and  by  means  of  which 
only  is  man  enabled  to  comprehend  the  wonder  of  existence,  and  to  grow 
up  intelligently  into  an  active  life  amongst  its  marvelous  machinery. 

No  ;  it  is  needless  to  speak  of  those  things  and  of  many  more  ;  but  it 
would  be  wrong  not  to  devote  a  few  words  to  the  means  by  which  the 
teacher  of  the  present  day  maintains  discipline  ;  that  is,  seeks  to  train  his 
scholars  to  obedience,  good  order,  good  conduct  and  deportment,  and  to 
all  other  good  qualities.  In  truth,  no  one  who  should  overlook  our  im- 
mense improvement  in  this  department  can  be  said  to  know  the  proposed 
aim  of  our  good  schools  and  skillful  educators  and  teachers ;  or  ever  to 
understand  our  schools  at  all.  The  well-disposed  scholar  is  received  and 
managed  by  love.  But  if  the  teacher  finds  himself  forced  to  punish  an 
ungovcrned,  disobedient,  or  lazy  scholar,  he  at  one  puts  a  period  to  the 
indulgence  of  his  base  or  wicked  practices.  It  pains  him,  but  his  sense 
of  duty  prevails  over  his  pain,  and  he  punishes  him  as  a  man  acquainted 
with  human  nature  and  as  a  friend,  first  admonishing  him  with  words. 
Fear  is  not  the  sceptre  with  which  he  governs ;  that  would  train  not  men, 
but  slaves.  It  is  only  when  admonition,  stimulation,  and  example  have 
failed,  and  when  duty  absolutely  demands  it,  that  he  makes  use  of  harsher 
means.  It  is  above  all  his  endeavor  to  treat  his  children  like  a  conscien- 
tious father.  Their  success  is  his  pride  and  happiness ;  in  it  he  finds  the 
,,blessing  of  his  difficult  calling.  He  daily  beseeches  God  for  it,  and  looks 
with  a  thankful  heart  to  him,  the  giver  of  all  good,  upon  whose  blessing 
every  thing  depends,  and  without  whom  the  watchman  of  the  house 
watches  in  vain,  if  under  the  divine  protection  any  thing  has  prospered 
under  his  hands. 

Instead  of  a  dark  and  dreary  dungeon,  the  school  has  become  an  insti- 
tution for  training  men.  Where  the  children  formerly  only  remained 
unwillingly,  they  now  like  best  to  go.  Consider,  now,  what  the  conse- 
quences of  this  change  of  training  must  be  on  the  hearts  and  lives  of  the 


PESTALOZZI  AND  THE  POPULAR  SCHOOL.  21 

children.  How  many  millions  of  tears  less  must  flow  every  year  down 
childrcns'  cheeks!  In  Germany  alone,  more  than  five  millions  of  chil- 
dren are  attending  school  at  the  same  time.  Is  the  inspiration  of  such  a 
number  to  future  goodness  a  fantastic  vision  ?  Must  not  every  depart- 
ment of  school  management  assume  great  importance  ?  It  is  with  joy  and 
pride  that  I  say  it;  I  myself  am  a  teacher.  Nowhere,  in  general,  do 
children  spend  happier  hours,  than  in  school ;  at  morning,  and  at  noon, 
they  can  not  wait  for  the  time  of  departing  for  school ;  they  willingly  lose 
their  breakfast,  rather  than  to  be  late.  How  was  it  formerly  ?  How  often 
did  fathers  or  mothers  drag  their  screaming  children  to  the  school? 
And  what  awaited  them  there  ?  God  bless  the  men  who  have  been  and 
still  are  laboring,  to  the  end  that  the  pleasant  season  of  youth,  which  will 
never  return,  the  happy  time  of  innocent  childhood,  may  not  be  troubled 
with  the  dark  barbaric  sterness  of  pedantic  school-tyrants  ;  but  that  the 
school  may  be  a  place  where  the  children  may  learn  all  that  is  good  and 
praiseworthy,  in  milder  and  more  earnest  ways ;  a  place  in  which  earnest 
and  thoughtful  men,  friends  of  children,  and  loving  the  teacher's  profes- 
sion, may  feel  and  admit  that  they  have  passed  the  happiest  hours  of  their 
lives.  From  schools  so  conducted,  a  blessing  must  go  forth  over  the 
earth.  Indeed,  the  ancients  knew  this.  Thousands  of  years  ago,  it  was 
high  praise  to  say  "He  has  built  us  a  school;"  and  not  less  to  say, 
"He  has  prepared  praise  for  himself  in  the  mouths  of  children." 

The  school  has  become  an  institution  for  training  men  and  women  ;  the 
old  "  school-masters  "  have  become  teachers.  Pupils  are  now 
from  the  very  foundations  of  their  being,  and  by  intelligible  means.  The 
scholar  is  not  a  machine,  an  automaton,  a  log ;  and  accordingly  the  system 
of  learning  unintelligently  by  rote  has  corne  to  be  reckoned  a  slavish  and 
degrading  drudgery.  The  laws  of  human  training  and  development  are 
no  longer  arbitrarily  announced,  but  are  investigated,  and  when  discovered, 
are  faithfully  followed.  These  laws  lie  within  human  nature  itself.  Beasts 
may  be  drilled  at  pleasure  into  external  observances ;  but  human  beings 
must  be  educated  and  developed  with  reason  and  to  reason,  according  to 
the  laws  impressed  by  God  upon  human  nature.  Of  these  laws,  the 
schoolmaster  handcraflsmen  of  former  centuries  knew  nothing.  Now, 
every  thoughtful  teacher  adjusts  his  course  of  education  and  all  his  ef- 
forts whatever,  as  nearly  as  possible  to  nature.  The  consequences  of  this 
magnificent  endeavor,  in  pedagogic  science  and  art  are  plain  before  our 
eyes  in  our  school-rooms.  Instead  of  the  former  damp  and  gloomy  pris- 
ons, we  have  light,  healthy,  clean  and  pleasant  rooms;  instead  of  dry 
and  mechanical  drilling  in  reading  and  other  studies,  effective  and  skill- 
ful education  in  the  elements  of  all  the  knowledge  and  attainments  re- 
quired by  man;  instead  of  the  ancient  stick-government  and  bastinado 
system,  a  mild,  earnest,  paternal  and  reasonable  method  of  discipline ; 
loving  instruction  from  well  written  books;  teachers  zealously  discharg- 
ing their  duties;  in  short,  we  in  Germany,  by  full  consciousness  that 
something  better  is  always  attainable,  by  laboring  forward  always  to  bet- 
ter methods,  and  by  actual  attainment,  that  the  best  educated  nations  on 


22  PESTALOZZI  AND  THE  POPULAR  SCHOOL. 

earth,  the  French  and  English,  are  behind  us  in  respect  to  educational 
matters,  we  may  justifiably  take  pride  in  knowing  that  men  from  all  the 
civilized  nations  in  the  world,  even  from  beyond  the  ocean,  travel  hither 
to  observe  the  German  common  schools,  to  understand  the  German 
teachers,  and  to  transplant  into  their  own  countries  the  benefits  of  which 
we  are  already  possessed. 

The  young  reader  who  has  followed  me  thus  far  will  naturally  inquire, 
how  all  this  happened ;  in  what  manner  this  better  school  system  came 
into  being.  And  among  the  names  of  those  noble  men  to  whose  thoughts 
and  deeds  we  owe  so  invaluable  a  creation,  all  historians  will  record  with 
high  honor  that  of  Pestalozzi. 

III.     INFLUENCE  OF  PESTALOZZI'S  LIFE  AND  LABORS  ON  THE  SCHOOLS 
OF  EUROPE. 

[We  omit  much  of  the  details  of  Pestalozzi's  career  as  they  will  be 
found  in  Raumer's  Life  already  refered  to. — Barnard's  Journal  of  Educa- 
tion, VOL.  Ill,  p.  401.] 

As  Pestalozzi  grew  up,  he  studied  to  become  a  minister,  but  finally 
decided  to  study  law.  In  this  profession  he  found  no  pleasure,  although 
he  completed  his  studies  in  it ;  his  attention  being  involuntarily  drawn 
aside  to  the  unhappy  condition  of  society  around  him.  In  the  high 
places  of  his  native  city,  prodigality,  luxury,  and  contempt  of  the  lower 
classes,  were  rife ;  while  the  poor  in  the  other  hand,  regarded  their  supe- 
riors with  hatred,  but  were  prostrate  in  misery,  want,  ignorance,  and  im- 
morality. The  contemplation  of  these  immeasurable  evils  of  the  age  filled 
Pestalozzi's  heart  with  grief  and  pain,  and  these  feelings  directed  his 
thoughts  to  a  search  for  some  remedy.  The  result  of  a  year's  reflection 
upon  the  means  of  assisting  his  unfortunate  fellow-men  was,  that  it  could 
only  be  done  by  training ;  by  a  better  education  of  youth,  especially  of  the 
children  of  the  poor  and  the  lower  classes  generally.  Like  a  flash  the  idea 
came  into  his  mind,  "I  will  be  a  schoolmaster;"  a  teacher  and  educator 
of  poor  children.  He  consulted  within  himself  upon  this  changed  de- 
sign ;  and  seem  to  hear  a  voice  replying,  "you  shall;"  and  again,  "you 
can."  So  he  answered,  "I  will."  How  well  he  fulfilled  the  promise! 
He  now  became  the  schoolmaster  of  a  world. 

Intention,  Power,  and  Resolve  ;  wherever  these  three  operate  together, 
there  result  not  only  promising  words,  but  efficient  actors. 

He  was  filled  with  a  sublime  conception,  wrhich  remained  with  him  un- 
til after  his  eightieth  year.  His  ideal  was,  the  ennobling  of  mankind  by 
education  and  culture.  To  this  he  devoted  his  whole  life.  He  could 
pursue  nothing  else ;  he  neglected  every  thing  else ;  he  thought  of  him- 
self last  of  all.  Ordinary  men  called  him  a  fanatic,  and  cast  nicknames 
at  him  and  his  enterprise. 

He  continued  his  special  affection  and  love  for  the  children  of  the  poor. 
He  was  very  early  convinced  that  their  education  could  not  be  success- 
fully conducted  within  the  close-shut,  artificially  organized  public  orphan- 
houses.  He  considered  that  they  could  onl}r  develop  properly,  in  body 


PESTALOZZI  AND  THE  POPULAR  SCHOOL.  23 

and  mind  alike,  in  the  country ;  that  they  ought  at  an  early  age  to  com- 
mence at  some  country  occupation ;  especially  at  some  useful  and  practi- 
cal kind  of  labor ;  and  that  by  that  means  their  minds  would  develop  in 
a  simple  and  natural  manner. 

[Here  follows  a  sketch  of  his  labors  at  Neuhof.] 

Every  child  who  was  capable  of  it  was  set  at  some  out  door  work,  and 
suitable  labor  was  also  provided  in  the  house ;  during  which  last  time  he 
instructed  them.  He  was  surprised  to  see  how  little  use  they  made  of 
their  faculties ;  how  blind  and  deaf  they  seemed  to  the  most  striking 
phenomena,  and  how  incorrectly  they  spoke.  Accordingly  he  concluded 
even  then  that  the  development  of  the  faculties,  learning  to  see  and  hear 
aright,  and  speak  correctly,  were  worth  more  than  facility  in  reading  and 
writing.  The  enterprise  was  too  large  for  means,  and  too  complicated  for 
his  practical  ability. 

[The  experiment  failed,  but  out  of  his  painful  experience  and  observa- 
tion he  wrote  "Leonard  and  Gertrude,"  which  was  published  by  Decker 
of  Berlin,  in  1781.] 

Amongst  the  nobles,  princes,  citizens,  and  philanthropists,  both  of  Ger- 
many and  Switzerland,  there  had  been  since  1770  a  growing  desire  for 
social  improvements.  The  conviction  was  all  the  time  spreading,  that 
there  was  a  necessity  for  bestowing  a  better  education  upon  the  lower 
classes ;  of  opposing  the  spread  of  superstition,  and  of  diffusing  more 
light  and  knowledge.  In  educational  directions,  Basedow  and  the  Canon 
von  Rochow  had  already  distinguished  themselves ;  and  thousands  had 
enlisted  in  aiding  their  enterprises.  A  book  like  Leonard  and  Gertrude, 
full  of  nature  and  truth,  must  necessarily  be  received  with  enthusiasm. 
The  author,  hitherto  unappreciated  even  in  his  own  neighborhood,  imme- 
diately came  into  repute  and  honor.  Encouraged  by  this  success,  he 
made  in  1782  a  tour  through  Germany,  in  search  of  model  schools,  study- 
ing the  experience  and  operations  of  others,  and  gaining  an  acquaintance 
with  the  first  men  in  Germany;  Klopstock,  "YVieland,  Goethe,  Herder, 
Jacobi,  &c.  On  his  return  he  delighted  the  world  with  other  useful  writ- 
ings. But  still  he  did  not  succeed  in  finding  any  place  where  he  could 
pursue  undisturbed  the  object  of  his  life. 

Meanwhile — for  we  must  hasten — the  French  Revolution  broke  out, 
and  proceeded  onward  to  the  most  horrible  excesses.  Switzerland  was 
attacked,  and  in  1798  was  invaded  and  overrun.  The  usual  consequences 
of  war,  impoverishment,  demoralization  and  barbarism  did  not  fail  to  fol- 
low. Such  news  made  the  patriotic  heart  of  Pestalozzi  beat  higher.  At 
the  information  that  troops  of  destitute  children  were  wandering  help- 
lessly about,  particularly  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Catholic  town  of  Stanz, 
he  proceeded  thither,  obtained  from  the  authorities  the  gift  of  an  empty 
house,  and  gathered  into  it  eighty  mendicant  children.  He  says  in  rela- 
tion to  this  occurrence,  "The  unfortunate  and  ruined  condition  of  Stanz, 
and  the  relations  into  which  I  came  with  a  great  crowd  of  entirely  desti- 
tute, partly  wild,  but  powerful  children  of  nature  and  of  the  mountains, 
gave  me  an  excellent  basis  of  operations,  and  though  in  the  midst  of 


24  PESTALOZZI  AND  THE  POPULAR  SCHOOL. 

manifold  hindrances,  an  opportunity  for  a  decisive  experiment  upon  the 
scope  and  grade  of  the  faculties  which  exist  universally  in  children,  as  a 
base  for  education  ;  and  likewise  to  determine  whether  and  to  what  ex- 
tent the  requisites  are  possible  and  practicable,  which  the  necessities  of 
the  case  demands,  for  the  education  of  the  common  people."  He  became 
their  father,  educator  and  teacher.  Day  and  night  he  was  with  them, 
the  earliest  in  the  morning,  and  the  last  at  night ;  he  ate,  slept  and  played 
with  them.  In  a  single  month,  they  had  learned  as  much  of  the  profit 
and  pleasure  of  his  instructions,  that  often  in  the  evening  when  he  re- 
quested them  to  go  to  bed,  they  begged  that  he  would  stay  a  little  long- 
er and  teach  them.  Content  and  happiness,  the  blessing  of  God,  rested 
upon  the  house.  When  in  1799  the  village  of  Altdorf  was  burnt,  Pesta- 
lozzi  asked  his  children,  "  How  is  it  ?  Can  we  receive  about  twenty  of 
these  houseless  children  amongst  us  ?  If  we  do  we  must  divide  our  food 
with  them."  "Yes,  yes,"  they  all  cried  out,  shouting  for  joy. 

But  this  pleasure  lasted  not  long.  In  that  same  year  the  French  en- 
tered the  neighborhood,  took  possession  of  the  building  for  a  hospital, 
and  Father  Pestalozzi  was  forced  to  disperse  his  children.  His  health 
was  broken  down  with  care,  sorrow  and  over-exertion;  and  he  was 
obliged  once  more  to  seek  the  means  of  support.  He  therefore  went  to 
Burgdorf,  and  established  himself  near  the  town  as  an  assistant  teacher 
without  wages.  His  new  modes  of  instruction  displeased  the  country 
people.  He  did  not  let  the  children  study  the  Heidelberg  Catechism 
enough ;  and  his  instruction  in  thinking  and  speaking  seemed  to  them 
entirely  superfluous.  But  after  eight  months,  the  superintending  author- 
ity, presenting  themselves  at  the  school,  were  much  astonished  at  what 
he  had  accomplished.  Unfortunately,  his  strength  was  exhausted  in  his 
oral  labors ;  at  the  end  of  a  year  he  had  to  resign  his  situation  for  the 
sake  of  his  health. 

During  all  his  experiments  thus  far,  his  purpose  of  founding  a  self- 
supporting  educational  institution  remained  unaltered.  He  ceased  opera- 
tions at  Burgdorf  in  1801 ;  was  afterward  established  at  Miinchen-Buch- 
see  in  Berne,  near  Hofwyl,  where  Fellenberg  was  laboring,  and  finally  at 
Yverdun  (Iferten,)  where  he  entirely  broke  down  in  1825.  The  last  estab- 
lishment was  named  the  Pestalozzian  Institute-;  and  as  such  it  became 
famous  in  all  Europe,  and  even  beyond  the  ocean,  in  America,  &c. 
Neither  before  nor  since  has  any  similar  institution  ever  attained  to  so 

«. — great  fame. 

^*  The  work  done  in  that  institution  became  the  foundation  of  the  com- 
mon schools  of  Germany ;  and  changed  the  ancient  mechanical  schools 
into  institutions  for  real  human  training. 

*s — -  The  fundamental  maxims  upon  which  the  instruction  there  proceeded, 
were  as  follows : 

The  basis  of  education  is  not  to  be  constructed,  but  to  be  sought ;  it 
exists  in  the  nature  of  man. 

The  nature  of  man  contains  an  inborn  and  active  instinct  of  develop- 
ment ;  is  an  organized  nature  ;  and  man  is  an  organized  being. 


PESTALOZZI  AND  THE  POPULAR  SCHOOL.  25 

True  education  will  find  that  its  chief  hindrances  are,  passive  obstruc- 
tions in  the  way  of  development ;  its  work  is  more  negative  than  positive. 

Its  positive  work  consists  in  stimulation ;  the  science  of  education  is  a 
theory  of  stimulation,  or  the  right  application  of  the  best  motives. 

The  development  of  man  commences  with  natural  perceptions  through 
the  senses  ;  its  highest  attainment  is,  intellectually,  the  exercise  of  rea- 
son ;  practically,  independence. 

The  means  of  independence  and  self-maintenance  is,  spontaneous  ac- 
tivity. 

Practical  capacity  depends  much  more  upon  the  possession  of  intellect- 
ual and  corporeal  power,  than  upon  the  amount  of  knowledge.  The 
chief  aim  of  all  education,  (instruction  included,)  is  therefore  the  develop- 
ment of  these  powers. 

The  religious  character  depends  much  less  upon  learning  the  Scriptures 
and  the  catechism,  than  upon  the  intercourse  of  the  child  with  a  God- 
fearing mother  and  an  energetic  father.  Religious  education,  like  all 
other,  must  begin  with  the  birth  of  the  child  ;  and  it  is  principally  in  the 
hands  of  the  mother. 

The  chief  departments  for  the  development  of  power,  are  form,  number  and 
speech.  The  idea  of  elementary  training  is,  the  notion  of  laying,  within 
the  nature  of  the  child,  by  means  of  domestic  education,  (the  influence  of 
father,  mother,  brothers  and  sisters,)  the  foundations  of  faith,  love,  of  the 
powers  of  seeing,  speaking  and  reflecting,  and  by  the  use  of  all  the 
means  of  education,  according  to  the  laws  and  methods  of  develop- 
ment included  within  nature  itself. 

Such  is  the  actual  substance  of  Pestalozzi's  principles  of  education. 
The  consequences  follow  of  themselves.  They  are  these  : 

The  family  circle  is  the  best  place  for  education  ;  the  mother's  book  the 
best  school-book. 

All  instruction  must  be  based  upon  training  the  intuitive  faculty.  The 
first  instruction  is  altogether  instruction  in  seeing :  the  first  instruction  on 
any  subject  must  be  the  same,  in  order  to  fruitful,  active  and  real 
comprehension  of  it.  The  opposite  of  this  is  the  empty  and  vain  mode 
of  mere  verbal  instruction.  First  the  thing  itself  should  be  taught,  and 
afterward,  as  far  as  possible,  the  form,  the  representation,  and  the  name. 

The  first  portion  of  instruction  consists  in  naming  things  and  causing 
the  names  to  be  repeated,  in  describing  them  and  causing  them  to  be 
described.  After  this,  it  should  be  the  teacher's  prime  object  to  develop 
spontaneous  activity,  and  for  that  purpose  to  use  the  fore-mentioned  pro 
gressive  and  inventive  method  of  teaching. 

Nothing  should  be  learnt  by  rote  without  being  understood  ;  the  prac- 
tice of  learning  by  rote  should  be  confined  to  mere  matters  of  form.  In 
the  method  of  oral  communication  with  the  scholars  is  to  be  found  an 
adequate  measure  for  estimating  the  clearness  and  activity  of  the  scholar's, 
power  of  seeing,  and  his  knowledge. 

The  chief  inducements  to  the  right  and  the  good  are  not  fear  and  pun- 
ishment, but  kindness  and  love. 


26  PESTALOZZI  AND  THE  POPULAR  SCHOOL. 

These  conclusions  flow  naturally  from  Pestalozzi's  fundamental  princi- 
ples. If  I  were  to  give  a  brief  statement  of  his  method  for  intellectual 
training,  I  should  call  it  "  Education  to  spontaneous  activity,  by  means 
of  knowledge  acquired  by  the  perceptions." 

This  system  has  changed  the  whole  condition  of  schools.  It  has  not, 
it  is  true,  yet  penetrated  all  the  schools,  or  all  the  teachers ;  but  this  is 
not  the  fault  of  the  founder.  To  change  a  system  established  for  centu- 
ries, is  the  work  of  centuries ;  not  of  a  year,  nor  ten  years.  In  the 
development  of  a  nation,  and  in  like  manner  of  a  school  system,  there  are 
epochs,  stationary  periods,  crises  and  reactions. 

While  the  best  men  in  Prussia,  after  1808,  were  laboring  to  effect  a 
a  regeneration  of  their  unfortunate  country,  King  Frederic  William  the 
Third*  summoned  C.  A.  Zeller  the  pupil  of  Pestalozzi,  to  Konigsberg,  with 
the  commission  of  awakening  the  intellectual  faculties  of  the  people,  as 
the  only  dependence  for  the  rescue  of  the  country.  The  great  Fichte 
had  already  drawn  attention  to  Pestalozzi,  in  his  lectures  and  publications 
at  Berlin.  Afterward,  the  eminent  minister,  Von  Altenstein,  sent  some 
young  men  to  Yverdun  to  be  trained. t  By  these  means,  and  by  means 
of  the  numerous  publications  of  Pestalozzi  and  his  followers,  with  some 

*  Ramsauer  writes  as  follows  of  the  visit  of  Frederic  William  III.  to  Pestalozzi : 

"  When  the  king  of  Prussia  came  to  Neufchatel  in  1814,  Pestalozzi  was  very  ill.  Neverthe. 
less,  he  insisted  that  I  should  carry  him  to  the  king,  that  he  might  thank  him  for  his  zeal  in 
the  cause  of  common  schools,  and  for  having  sent  so  many  pupils  to  Yverdun.  On  the  way 
he  fainted  several  times,  and  I  was  obliged  to  take  him  from  the  vehicle  and  carry  him  into  a 
house.  I  urged  him  to  return,  but  he  replied,  '  No  ;  say  nothing  about  it.  I  must  see 
the  king,  if  I  die  after  it :  if  by  means  of  my  visit  to  him,  a  single  Prussian  child  obtains  a 
better  education,  I  shall  be  well  repaid.'  " 
The  benefits  which  this  noble  man  wished  for  one  child,  have  been  secured  already  to  millions. 

t  Extract  from  a  letter  which  the  Baron  Von  Altenstein  wrote  to  Pestalozzi,  dated  llth 
Sept.,  1808,  at  Konigsberg: 

"  The  king's  majesty,  with  a  view  to  the  efficient  improvement  of  the  national  system  of 
education,  which  always  lies  so  near  his  heart,  has  lately  entrusted  me,  as  directing  minister, 
with  the  oversight  of  the  schools  and  educational  system  in  the  proper  Prussian  provinces  of 
his  dominions. 

Being  fully  convinced  of  the  great  value  of  the  system  of  instruction  discovered,  and  so 
skillfully  carried  into  practice  by  yourself,  and  expecting  from  it  the  most  favorable  influence 
upon  the  culture  of  the  people,  I  am  desirous  of  making  its  introduction  into  the  elementary 
schools  the  basis  of  a  thorough  educational  reform  in  those  provinces.  Among  the  measures 
which  I  contemplate  for  this  purpose,  one  of  the  principal  is,  forthwith  to  send  to  you  two 
suitable  young  men.  that,they  may  drink  in  the  spirit  of  your  entire  system  of  education  and 
instruction,  at  the  purest  source.  I  desire  them  not  only  to  learn  some  one  department  of  it 
but  to  master  all  of  them,  in  their  various  connections  and  deepest  unity,  under  the  guidance 
of  yourself,  the  eminent  founder  of  the  system,  and  with  your  efficient,  assistance.  I  desire 
them  by  this  intercourse  with  you,  not  only  to  acquire  the  spirit  of  your  system,  but  to  become 
trained  into  a  complete  fitness  for  the  teacher's  vocation  :  to  acquire  the  same  conviction  of  its 
holiness,  and  the  same  ardent  impulses  to  pursue  it,  which  have  induced  you  to  devote  to  it 
your  whole  life. 

In  order  to  the  best  mode  of  procedure,  I  desire  in  the  meanwhile  to  hear  from  yourself 
what  class  of  young  men  you  consider  fittest  to  learn  your  method  ;  what  age,  natural  dispo- 
sition, and  previous  mental  training  would  suit  you  best,  in  order  that  the  individuals  selected 
may  meet  your  wishes  in  every  respect." 

In  1809,  the  minister  of  public  instruction  writes  as  follows  to  the  teachers  who  hud  been 
tent  to  Yverdun  :  "  The  section  of  public  instruction  begs  you  to  believe,  and  to  assure  Mr. 
Pestalozzi,  that  the  cause  is  the  interest  of  the  government,  and  of  his  majesty,  the.  king,  per- 
sonally, who  are  convinced  that  liberation  from  extraordinary  calamities  i.i  fruitless,  and  only 
to  be  effected  by  a  thorough  improvement  of  the  people's  education." 


PESTALOZZI  AND  THE  POPULAR  SCHOOL.  27 

help  from  the  pressure  of  circumstances,  the  Prussian,  or  rather  the 
Prussian-Pestalozzian  school-system,  was  established.  For  he  is  entitled 
to  at  least  half  the  fame  of  the  German  common  schools.  Whatever  of 
excellence  or  eminence  they  have,  they  really  owe  to  no  one  but  him. 
Wherever  his  principles  have  been  deviated  from,  there  has  followed  a 
decline.  Whatever  of  progress  yet  remains  visible  is  a  development  of 
his  principles.  Whatever  in  our  system  is  based  on  human  nature, 
is  taken  from  him.  His  experiments  have  secured  their  world-wide  fame 
to  the  German  schools.  From  France,  England,  Italy,  Spain,  Russia, 
Poland,  Norway,  Sweden,  Holland,  Denmark,  America,  whoever  desires 
to  study  the  best  schools,  resorts  to  Germany.  Whatever  fame  they 
have,  they  owe  to  Pestalozzi.  Wise  people  have  made  use  of  his 
creations  for  organizing  improved  institutions  for  training  teachers.  But 
the  first  impulse  was  given  to  the  movement  by  the  noble  Swiss.  As  the 
waters  flow  from  that  land  in  every  direction,  in  like  manner  have 
fruitful  principles  of  instruction  been  diffused  from  it  into  every  country 
where  improvement  can  be  detected. 

The  men  and  women  by  whom  especially  the  method  and  spirit  of ' 
Pestalozzi  were  diffused  in  Germany  are ;  Frederick  William  III  and  his 
consort  Louise;*  state-councilors  Nicolovius  and  Suvern;  the  philoso- 
pher Fichte,  by  his  immortal  addresses  to  the  German  nation ;  high  school- 
councilor  Zeller  in  Konigsberg ;  the  Prussian  teachers  trained  at  Yver- 
dun ;  namely,  Kawerau,  Dreist,  Henning,  Braun,  Steger  Marsch,  the  two 
Bernhards,  Hanel,  Titze,  Runge,  Baltrusch,  Patzig,  Preuss,  Kratz,  and 
Rendschmidt;  royal  and  school  councilor  Von  Turk  in  Potsdam,  semin- 
ary-director Gruner  in  Idstein  ;  professor  Ladomus  in  Carlsruhe ;  the 
prelate  Denzel  in  Esslingen ;  seminary-director  Stern  in  Carlsruhe  ;  prin- 
cipal Plamann,  in  Berlin ;  seminary-director  Harnisch  in  Breslau ;  Karo- 
line  Rudolphi  in  Heidelberg;  Betty  Gleim  in  Bremen  and  Elberfeld; 
Ramsauer,  royal  tutor  in  Oldenberg  ;  professor  Schacht  in  Mentz  ;  sem- 
inary inspector  Kruger  in  Bunzlau ;  seminary-director  Hientzsch  in  Pots- 
dam ;  principal  Scholz  in  Breslau,  Dr.  Tillich  in  Dessau ;  director  Bloch- 
mann  in  Dresden ;  principal  Ackermann  in  Frankfort  on  the  Mayne ; 
principal  de  Laspe  in  Wiesbaden ;  seminary-inspector  Wagner  in  Briihl ; 
seminary-director  Braun  in  Neuwied ;  seminary-preceptor  Muhl  in  Tri- 
er ;  seminary-director  Graffmann  in  Stettin ;  catechist  Kroger  in  Ham- 
burg ;  inspector  Collmann  in  Cassel ;  and  others.  By  means  of  these 
men  the  Pcstalozzian  common  schools  were  set  in  operation  throughout 
all  Germany ;  and  in  Prussia,  the  Prussian-Pestalozzian  system.  As 
during  Pestalozzi's  life  Yverdun  was  a  place  of  pilgrimage  for  teachers, 
so  afterward,  from  Europe,  America  and  elsewhere,  men  came  to  observe 
the  German  and  Prussian  common  schools.  May  this  reputation  never 
decrease ;  may  it  ever  grow  greater  and  greater !  Much  yet  remains  to 
be  done. 


*  Queen  Louise,  who  superintended  the  education  of  her  own  children,  visited  frequently 
the  schools  conducted  on  the  plans  and  methods  of  Pestalo/.zi,  spending  hours  in  each  visit, 
and  aided  in  many  ways  those  who  labored  to  regenerate  the  popular  schools  of  Prussia. 


28  TESTA LOZZI'S  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION. 

The  foregoing  sketch  of  Pestalozzi's  labors,  and  of  their  influence  on 
the  popular  schools  of  Germany,  abridged  from  the  Centennial  Dis- 
courses of  two  of  his  avowed  disciples,  Dr.  Blochmanri,  of  Dresden,  and 
Dr.  Diestervveg,  of  Berlin,  represent  the  extreme  views  entertained 
by  the  admirers  of  the  great  Swiss  educator.  There  is  a  large  number 
of  educators  and  teachers,  at  the  head  of  whom  is  Karl  von  Raurner, 
at  one  time  a  resident  at  Yverdun,  for  the  purpose  of  studying  the 
system  and  methods  of  the  Pestalozzian  Institution,  who,  while  they 
acknowledge  the  value  of  Pestalozzi's  services  to  the  instruction  and 
industrial  training  of  the  poor,  and  to  the  true  theory  of  education, 
maintain  that  his  principles  arid  methods  as  developed  and  applied  by 
himself,  are  in  some  icspects  unsound  and  incomplete. 

The  following  summary  and  comparative  view  of  his  principles,  is 
taken  from  an  article  by  William  C.  Woodbridge,  in  the  American 
Annals  of  Education,  for  January,  1837. 

As  the  result  of  his  investigations,  Pestalozzi  assumed  as  a  fundamental  prin- 
•— -•  ciple,  that  education,  in  order  to  fit  man  ibr  his  destination,  must  proceed  ac- 
cording to  the  laws  of  nature.  To  adopt  the  language  of  his  followers — that  it 
must  not  act  as  an  arbitrary  mediator  between  the  child  and  nature,  between 
man  and  God,  pursuing  its  own  artificial  arrangements,  instead  of  the  indica- 
tions of  Providence — that  it  should  assist  the  course  of  natural  development,  in- 
stead of  doing  it  violence — that  it  should  watch,  and  follow  its  progress,  instead 
of  attempting  to  mark  out  a  path  agreeably  to  a  preconceived  system. 

I.  In  view  of  this  principle,  he.  did  not  choose,  like  Basedow,  to  cultivate  the 
mind  in  a  material  way,  merely  by  inculcating  and  engrafting  every  thing  rela- 
ting to  external  objects,  and  giving  mechanical  skill.     He  sought,  on  the  con- 
trary, to  develope,  and  exercise,  and  strengthen  the  faculties  of  the  child  by  a 

— 'steady  course  of  excitement  to  self-activity,  with  a  limited  degree  of  assistance 
to  his"  efforts. 

II.  In  opposition  to  the  haste,  and  blind  groping  of  many  teachers  without 
system,  he  endeavored  to  find  the  proper  point  for  commencing,  and  to  proceed 
in  a  slow  and  gradual,  but  uninterrupted  course,  from  one  point  to  another — 
always  waiting  until  the  first  should  have  a  certain  degree  of  distinctness  in  the 
mind  of  the  child,  before  entering  upon  the  exhibition  of  the  second.     To  pur- 
sue any  other  course  would  only  give  superficial  knowledge,  which  would 
neither  afford  pleasure  to  the  child,  nor  promote  its  real  progress. 

III.  He  opposed  the  undue  cultivation  of  the  memory  and  understanding,  as 
hostile  to  true  education.     He  placed  the  essence  of  education  in  the  harmoni- 
ous and  uniform  development  of  every  faculty,  so  that  the  body  should  not  be 
in  advance  of  the  mind,  and  that  in  the  development  of  the  mind,  neither  the 
physical  powers,  nor  the  affections,  should  be  neglected;  and  that  skill  in  ac- 
tion should  be  acquired  at  the  same  time  with  knowledge.     When  this  point  is 
secured,  we  may   know  that  education  lias  really  begun,  and  that  it  is  not 
merely  superficial. 

IV."  He  required  close  attention  and  constant  reference  to  the  peculiarities  of 
every  child,  and  of  each  sex,  as  well  as  to  the  characteristics  of  the  people 
among  whom  he  lived,  in  order  that  he  might  acquire  the  development  and 
qualifications  necessary  for  the  situation  to  which  the  Creator  destined  him, 
when  he  gave  him  these  active  faculties,  and  be  prepared  to  labor  successfully 
for  those  among  whom  he  was  placed  by  his  birth. 

V.  While  Basedow  introduced  a  multitude  of  subjects  of  instruction  into  the 
schools,  without  special  regard  to  the  development  of  the  intellectual  powers, 
Pestaloxzi  considered  this  plan  as  superficial.  He  limited  the  elementary  sub- 
jects of  instruction  to  Form,  Number  and  Language,  as  the  essential  e\  .Jition 


PESTALOZZI'S  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION.  29 

of  definite  and  distinct  knowledge  ;  and  believed  that  these  elements  should  be 
taught  with  the  utmost  possible  simplicity,  comprehensiveness  and  mutual  con- 
nection. 

VI.  Pestalozzi,  as  well  as  Basedow,  desired  that  instruction  should  com- 
mence with  the  intuition  or  simple  perception  of  external  objects  and  their  rela- 
tions.    He  was  not,  however,  satisfied  with  this  alone,  but  wished  that  the  art  of 
observing  should  also  be  acquired.     He  thought  the  things  perceived  of  less  con- 
sequence than  the  cultivation  of  the  perceptive  powers,  which  should  enable 
the  child  to  observe  completely,— to  exhaust  the  subjects   which  should  be 
brought  before  his  mind. 

VII.  While  the  Philanthropinists  attached  great  importance  to  special  exer- 
cises of  reflection,  Pestalozzi  would  not  make  this  a  subject  of  separate  study. 
He  maintained  that  every  subject  of  instruction  should  be  properly  treated,  and 
thus  become  an  exercise  of  thought;  and  believed,  that  lessons  on  Number,  and 
Proportion  and  Size,  would  give  the  best  occasion  for  it. 

VIII.  Pestalozzi,  as  well  as  Basedow,  attached  great  importance  to  Arithme- 
tic, particularly  to  Mental  Arithmetic.     He  valued  it,  however,  not  merely  in 
the  limited  view  of  its  practical  usefulness,  but  as  an  excellent  means  of 
strengthening  the  mind.     He  also  introduced  Geometry  into  the  elementary 
schools,  and  the  art  connected  with  it,  of  modeling  and  drawing  beautiful  ob- 
jects.    He  wished,  in  this  way,  to  train  the  eye,  the  hand,  and  the  touch,  for 
that  more  advanced  species  of  drawing  which  had  not  been  thought  of  before. 
Proceeding  from  the  simple  and  intuitive,  to  the  more  complicated  and  diffi- 
cult forms,  he  arranged  a  series  of  exercises  so  gradual  and  complete,  that  the 
method  of  teaching  this  subject  was  soon  brought  to  a  good  degree  of  perfection. 

IX.  The  Philanthropinists  introduced  the  instruction  of  language  into  the 
common  schools,  but  limited  it  chiefly  to  the  writing  of  letters  and  preparation 
of  essays.     But  Pestalozzi  was  not  satisfied  with  a  lifeless  repetition  of  the 
rules  of  grammar,  nor  yet  with  mere  exercises  for  common  life.     He  aimed  at 
a  development  of  the  laws  of  language  from  within — an  introduction  into  its  in- 
ternal nature  and  construction  and  peculiar  spirit— which  would  not  only  culti- 
vate the  intellect,  but  also  improve  the  affections.     It  is  impossible  to  do  justice 
to  his  method  of  instruction  on  this  subject,  in  a  brief  sketch  like  the  present — 
but  those  who  have  witnessed  its  progress  and  results,  are  fully  aware  of  its 
practical  character  and  value. 

X.  Like  Basedow,  Rochow  and  others,  Pestalozzi  introduced  vocal  music 
into  the  circle  of  school  studies,  on  account  of  its  powerful  influence  on  the 
heart.    But  he  was  not  satisfied  that  the  children  should  learn  to  sing  a  few  melo- 
dies by  note  or  by  ear.    He  wished  them  to  know  the  rules  of  melody  and  rhythm, 
and  dynamics — to  pursue  a  regular  course  of  instruction,  descending  to  its  very 
elements,  and  rendering  the  musical  notes  as  familiar  as  the  sounds  of  the  let- 
ters.    The  extensive  work  of  Nageli  and  Pfeiffer  has  contributed  very  much  to 
give  this  branch  of  instruction  a  better  form. 

XI.  He  opposed  the  abuse  which  was  made  of  the  Socratic  method  in  many 
of  the  Philanthropinic  and  other  schools,  by  attempting  to  draw  something  out 
of  children  before  they  had  received  any  knowledge.     He  recommends,  on  the 
contrary,  in  the  early  periods  of  instruction,  the  established  method  of  dictation 
by  the  teacher  and  repetition  by  the  scholar,  with  a  proper  regard  to  rhythm, 
and  at  a  later  period,  especially  in  the  mathematical  and  other  subjects  which 
involve  reasoning,  the  modern  method,  in  which  the  teacher  merely  gives  out 
the  problems  in  a  proper  order,  and  leaves  them  to  be  solved  by  the  pupils,  by 
the  exertion  of  their  own  powers. 

XII.  Pestalozzi  opposes  strenuously  the  opinion  that  religious  instruction 
should  be  addressed  exclusively  to  the  understanding;  and  shows  that  religion 
lies  deep  in  the  hearts  of  men,  and  that  it  should  not  be  enstamped  from  with- 
out, but  developed  from  within ;    that  the  basis  of  religious  feeling  is  to   be 
found  in  the  childish  disposition  to  love,  to  thankfulness,  to  veneration,  obedi- 
ence and  confidence  toward  its  parents;  that  these  should  be  cultivated  and 
strengthened  and  directed  toward  God;  and  that  religion  should  be  formally 
treated  of  at  a  later  period  in  connection  with  the  feelings  thus  excited.     As  he 
requires  the  mother  to  direct  the  first  development  of  all  the  faculties  of  her  child, 
he  assigns  to  her  especially  the  task  of  first  cultivating  the  religious  feelings. 

XIII.  Pestalozzi  agreed  with  Basedow,  that  mutual  affection  ought  to  reign 
between  the  educator  and  the  pupil,  both  in  the  house  and  in  the  school,  in  or- 


30  PESTALOZZl'S  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION. 

der  to  render  education  effectual  and  useful.  He  was,  therefore,  as  little  dis- 
posed as  Basedow,  to  sustain  school  despotism  ;  but  he  did  not  rely  on  artificial 
excitements,  such  as  those  addressed  to  emulation.  He  preferred  that  the  chil- 
dren should  find  their  best  reward  in  the  consciousness  of  increased  intellectual 
vigor ;  and  expected  the  teacher  to  render  the  instruction  so  attractive,  that  the 
delightful  feeling  of  progress  should  be  the  strongest  excitement  to  industry  and 
to  morality. 

XIV.  Pestalozzi  attached  as  much  importance  to  the  cultivation  of  the 
bodily  powers,  and  the  exercise  of  the  senses,  as  the  Philanthropinists,  and  in 
his  publications,  pointed  out  a  graduated  course  for  this  purpose.  But  as  Guts- 
muths,  Vieth,  Jahn.  and  Clias  treated  this  subject  very  fully,  nothing  further 
was  written  concerning  it  by  his  immediate  followers. 

Such  are  the  great  principles  which  entitle  Pestalozzi  to  the  high  praise  of 
having  given  a  more  natural,  a  more  comprehensive  and  deeper  foundation  for 
education  and  instruction,  and  of  having  called  into  being  a  method  which  is 
far  superior  to  any  that  preceded  it. 

But  with  all  the  excellencies  of  the  system  of  education  adopted  by  Pesta- 
lozzi, truth  requires  us  to  state  that  it  also  involves  serious  defects. 

1.  In  his  zeal  for  the  improvement  of  the  mind  itself,  and  for  those  modes  of 
instruction  which  were  calculated  to  develop  and  invigorate  its  faculties,  Pes- 
talozzi forgot  too  much  the  necessity  of  general  positive  knowledge,  as  the  ma- 
terial for  thought  and  for  practical  use  in  future  life.     The  pupils  of  his  estab- 
lishment, instructed  on  his  plan,  were  too  often  dismissed  with  intellectual 
powers  which  were  vigorous  and  acute,  but  without  the  stores  of  knowledge 
important  for  immediate  use — well  qualified  for  mathematical  and  abstract 
reasoning,  but  not  prepared  to  apply  it  to  the  business  of  common  life. 

2.  He  commenced  with  intuitive,  mathematical  studies  too  early,  attached 
too  much  importance  to  them,  and  devoted  a  portion  of  time  to  them,  which 
did  not  allow  a  reasonable  attention  to  other  studies,  and  which  prevented  the 
regular  and  harmonious  cultivation  of  other  powers. 

3.  The  method  of  instruction  was  also  defective  in  one  important  point.     Sim- 
•  plification  was  carried  too  far,  and  continued  too  long.     The  mind  became  so  ac- 
customed to  receive  knowledge  divided  into  its  most  simple  elements  and  small- 
est portions,  that  it  was  not  prepared  to  embrace  complicated  ideas,  or  to  make 
tho.se  rapid  strides  in  investigation  and  conclusion  which  is  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant results  of  a  sound  education,  and  which  indicates  the  most  valuable 
kind  of  mental  vigor  both  for  scientific  purposes  and  for  practical  life. 

4.  He  attached  too  little  importance  to  testimony  as  one  of  the  sources  of  our 
knowledge,  and  devoted  too  little  attention  to  historical  truth.     He  was  accus- 
tomed to  observe  that  history  was  but  a   '  tissue  of  lies;'  and  forgot  that  it  was 
necessary  to  occupy  the  pupil  with  man,  and  with  moral  events,  as  well  as  with 
nature  and  matter,  if  we  wish  to  cultivate  properly  his  moral  powers,  and  ele- 
vate him  above  the  material  world. 

5.  But  above  all,  it  is  to  be  regretted,  that  in  reference  to  religious  education, 
he  fell  into  an  important  error  of  his  predecessors.     His  too  exclusive  attention 
to  mathematical  and  scientific  subjects,  tended,  like  the  system  of  Basedow,  to 
give  his  pupils  the  habit  of  undervaluing  historical  evidence  and  of  demanding 
rational  demonstration  for  every   truth,  or  of  requiring  the  evidence  of  their 
senses,  or  something  analogous  to  it,  to  which  they  were  constantly  called  tu 
appeal  in  their  studies  of  Natural  History. 

It  is  precisely  in  this  way,  that  many  men  of  profound  scientific  attainments 
have  been  led  to  reject  the  evidence  of  revelaiion,  and  some,  even,  strange  as  it 
may  seem,  to  deny  the  existence  of  Him,  whose  works  and  laws  they  study. 
In  some  of  the  early  Pestalozzian  schools,  feelings  of  this  nature  were  particu- 
larly cherished  by  the  habit  of  asserting  a  falsehood  in  the  lessons  on  Mathe- 
matics or  Natural  history,  and  calling  upon  the  pupils  to  contradict  it  or  dis- 
prove it  if  they  did  not  admit  its  truth.  No  improvement  of  the  intellectual 
powers,  can,  in  our  view,  compensate  for  the  injury  to  the  moral  sense  and  the 
diminished  respect  for  truth,  which  will  naturally  result  from  such  a  course. 

6.  While  Pestalozzi  disapproved  of  the  attempts  of  the  Philanthropinists  to 
draw  forth  from  the  minds  of  children,  before  they  had  stores  of  knowledge,  he 
seemed  to  forget  the  application  of  his  principle  to  moral  subjects,  or  to  imagine 
that  this  most  elevated  species  of  knowledge  was  innate.     He  attempted  too 
much  to  draw  from  the  minds  of  his  puuils  those  great  truths  of  religion  and  the 


PESTALOZZI'S  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION.  31 

spiritual  world  which  can  only  be  acquired  from  revelation ;  and  thus  led  them 
to  imagine  they  were  competent  to  judge  on  this  subject  without  external  aid. 
It  is  obvious  that  such  a  course  would  fall  in  most  unhappily  with  the  tenden- 
cies produced  by  other  parts  of  the  plan,  and  that  we  could  not  hope  to  educate 
in  such  a  mode,  a  truly  Christian  community. 

The  personal  character  of  Pestalozzi  also  influenced  his  views  and  methods  of 
education  on  religious  subjects.  He  was  remarkably  the  creature  of  power- 
ful impulses,  which  were  usually  of  the  most  mild  and  benevolent  kind ;  and 
he  preserved  a  child-like  character  in  this  respect  even  to  old  age.  It  was 
probably  this  temperament,  which  led  him  to  estimate  at  a  low  rate  the  import- 
ance of  positive  religious  truth  in  the  education  of  children,  and  to  maintain 
that  the  mere  habit  of  faith  and  love,  if  cultivated  toward  earthly  friends  and 
benefactors,  would,  of  course,  be  transferred  to  our  Heavenly  Father,  whenever 
his  character  should  be  exhibited  to  the  mind  of  the  child.  The  fundamental 
error  of  this  view  was  established  by  the  unhappy  experience  of  his  own  insti- 
tution. His  own  example  afforded  the  most  striking  evidence  that  the  noblest 
impulses,  not  directed  by  established  principles,  may  lead  to  imprudence  and 
ruin,  and  thus  defeat  their  own  ends.  As  an  illustration  of  this,  it  may  be  men- 
tioned that,  on  one  of  those  occasions,  frequently  occurring,  on  which  he  was-v 
reduced  to  extremity  for  want  of  the  means  of  supplying  his  large  family,  he  ) 
borrowed  four  hundred  dollars  from  a  friend  for  the  purpose.  In  going  home,/ 
he  met  a  peasant,  wringing  his  hands  in  despair  for  the  loss  of  his  cow.  Pes- 
talozzi put  the  entire  bag  of  money  into  his  hands,  and  ran  off  to  escape  his 
thanks.  These  circumstances,  combined  with  the  want  of  tact  in  reference  to 
the  affairs  of  common  life,  materially  impaired  his  powers  of  usefulness  as  a 
practical  instructor  of  youth.  The  rapid  progress  of  his  ideas  rarely  allowed 
him  to  execute  his  own  plans;  and,  in  accordance  with  his  own  system,  too 
much  time  was  employed  in  the  profound  development  of  principles,  to  admit 
of  much  attention  to  their  practical  application. 

But,  as  one  of  his  admirers  observed,  it  was  his  province  to  educate  ideas  and 
not  children.  He  combated,  with  unshrinking  boldness  and  untiring  perse- 
verance, through  a  long  life,  the  prejudices  and  abuses  of  the  age  in  reference  to 
education,  both  by  his  example  and  by  his  numerous  publications.  He  attacked 
with  great  vigor  and  no  small  degree  of  success,  that  favorite  maxim  of  bigotry 
and  tyranny,  that  obedience  and  devotion  are  the  legitimate  offspring  of  igno- 
rance. He  denounced  that  degrading  system,  which  considers  it  enough  to 
enable  man  to  procure  a  subsistence  for  himself  and  his  offspring— and  in  this 
manner,  merely  to  place  him  on  a  level  with  the  beast  of  the  forest;  and  which 
deems  every  thing  lost  whose  value  can  not  be  estimated  in  money.  He  urged 
upon  the  consciences  of  parents  and  rulers,  with  an  energy  approaching  that  of 
the  ancient  prophets,  the  solemn  duties  which  Divine  Providence  had  imposed 
upon  them,  in  committing  to  their  charge  the  present  and  future  destinies  of 
their  fellow-beings.  In  this  way,  he  produced  an  impulse,  which  pervaded  the 
continent  of  Europe,  and  which,  by  means  of  his  popular  and  theoretical  works, 
reached  the  cottages  of  the  poor  and  the  palaces  of  the  great.  His  institution 
at  Yverdun  was  crowded  with  men  of  every  nation ;  not  merely  those  who 
were  led  by  the  same  impulse  which  inspired  him,  but  by  the  agents  of  kings 
and  noblemen,  and  public  institutions,  who  came  to  make  themselves  ac- 
quainted with  his  principles,  in  order  to  become  his  fellow-laborers  in  other 
countries." 


INFLUENCE  OF  PESTALOZZI  ON  THE  INFANT  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 


OF 

ENGLAND. 


THROUGH  the  efforts  of  Dr.  Mayo,  Dr.  Biber,  and  Mr.  Greaves,  (each  of 
whom  spent  several  months  at  Yverdun,  and  subsequently  made  publica- 
tions on  the  subject,)  and  especially  through  the  labors  of  the  Infant  School 
Society,  a  knowledge  of  Pestalozzi's  educational  principles  and  methods 
has  been  gradually  infused  into  the  popular  schools  of  England.  The 
following  syllabus  of  "Lessons  on  Education"  will  show  the  extent  to 
which  Pestalozzi  is  now  recognized  as  authority  in  the  best  infant  schools 
of  Great  Britain. 

EXTRACTS  FROM  SYLLABUS   OF  LESSONS   ON  EDUCATION,  GIVEN   TO  STUDENTS 
IN  TRAINING  AT  THE  HOME  AND  COLONIAL  SCHOOL  SOCIETY. 

I. — THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  EDUCATION  AS  SET  FORTH  BY  PESTALOZZI. 

1.  On  the  Aim.  proposed  by  Pestalozzi  in  Education. — This  the  first  point  to  be  con- 
sidered— Mistakes  with  respect  to — The  true  aim  of  education  as  it  respects  knowledge 
— intellectual  and   moral  character — Social   relations — Moral  and  religious   duties — 
Principles  on  which  based — The  proper  work  of  the  Teacher  reduced — Results. 

2.  The  Influence  of  a  good  Education. — The  little  that  has  been  done  by  education  as 
hitherto  pursued — Causes  of  this — Influence  of  a  good  education  on  thought,  feeling, 
sentiment,  opinion,  &c. — Different  senses  in  which  the  child  may  be  said  to  be  father 
of  the  man — Influence  of  education  established  from  examples — Necessity  of  faith  in 
this   principle   on   the   part  of  the   Teacher — Incidental   and  systematic   education, 
difference  between — The  Teacher  to  form  a  good  intellectual  and  moral  atmosphere 
round  the  child — Means  of  effecting  this. 

3.  Education,  Organic. — Organs  and  organized  bodies  considered  to  illustrate  this — 
Difference  between  growth  from  within  carried  on  by  organic  action  or  development, 
and  increase  from  without  effected  by  accretion — Application — Difference    between 
ordinary  elementary  education  and  elementary  education  on  the  system  of  Pestalozzi 
— Deductions    as  to  liberty,  activity,  and  power — The   application,    especially  as  to 
liberty,  in  the  school  room  and  play-ground. 

•1.  On  Education  being  an  entire  Work. — Pestalozzi's  motto,  "  Education  has  to  work 
on  the  head,  the  hand,  -and  the  heart" — Dugald  Stewart  on  the  same  point — Pestalozzi 
introduced  the  principle  into  popular  education — The  perfection  to  be  aimed  at  in 
education,  moral, — Mistakes,  that  have  been  made  as  to  Pestalozzi's  practice — Pesta- 
lozzi's estimate  of  the  relative  importance  of  the  different  elements  of  a  child's  nature, 
and  method  of  dealing  with  each. 

5.  Education  should  aim  at.  the  Gradual  and  Progressive  Development  of  the  Faculties. — 
Examples  of  graduated  and  progressive  instruction  as — Proceeding  from  realities  to 
signs,  first  natural,  then  artificial — From  particular  facts  to  general  truths — From  what 
is  simple  to  what  is  complex — From  the  exercise  of  observation  to  the  exercise  of  con- 
ception— From  the  conception  o.f  material  things  to  abstract  ideas,  &c. — The  first  step 
— to  find  something  analogous  in  the  experience  of  the  child  to  the  subject  presented, 
thus  proceeding  from  the  known  to  the  unknown — The  child  to  be  firm  on  one  step 
before  proceeding  to  the  next — The  extent  to  which  graduation  should  be  carried — Ex- 
tremes to  be   avoided — The  graduations   not   to   be  too   minute  to   prevent  healthy 
exercise. 

6.  Education  should  be  Harmonious. — The  cultivation  of  all  the  faculties,  not  singly 
and  apart,  but  simultaneously. 

7.  The  Character  or  Spirit  of  Education. — "  Not  to  teach  religion  alone  but  all  things 
religiously" — Illustration  drawn  from  the  circulation  of  the  blood  in  the  body — Ex- 
emplification of  this  spirit  in  the  instruction,  general  management,  and  discipline  of  the 
school — Results  to  be  expected. 

8.  Early  Education  chiefly  by  Intuition. — What  is  meant  by  intuition — Examples — 
Value  of  what  is  learned  from  experience — Early  education  to  lead  to  and  prepare  the 
mind  for  books — When  commenced  with  books  the  mind  often  loaded  with  words  con- 
veying no  definite  meaning  to  children — The  powers  of  the  mind  in  consequence  often 
cramped — Intuitive  teaching  one  of  the  leading  features  of  Pestalozzi's  system — Con- 
nection between  intuitive  and  logical  knowledge — The  assistance  the  former  gives  to 


SCHOOL  MANAGEMENT  AND  THE  ART  OF  TEACHING.        33 

the  latter — Difference  between  the  instruction  of  infants  and  juveniles,  the  one  mainly 
intuitive,  the  other  principally  logical. 

9.  Difference  between  Education  and  Instruction. — An  idea  put  forth  strongly  by  Pesta- 
lozzi — Origin  and  application  of  the  words — Points  of  difference — Instruction  com- 
municated (though  the  subject  may  be  clearly  explained)  does  not  produce  the  same 
good  effect,  as  instruction  employed  as  a  means  of  mental  discipline — The  proper 
bearing  of  this  distinction  on  the  lessons  of  the  Teacher. 

10.  Education  of  a  Mixed  Character. — What  this  means — Principle  on  which  based — 
Examples — Education  should  be  practical  as  well  as  preceptive — Illustrated  by  the 
Teacher  as  well  as  enforced  upon   the  child — Applied  individually  as  well  as  collec- 
tively—Direct  instruction   to  be  followed   by  study — Public   education  united   with 
private  and  domestic — Children  to  be  carried  rapidly  over  some  subjects  to  develop 
power  and  energy, — slowly  over  others  to  give  habits  of  minute  investigation — Subjects 
of  instruction  enumerated. 

11.  Systems  of  Education. — Application  of  the  word  system — Views  generally  taken 
of  systems  of  education — Characteristics  of  the  chief  popular  systems,  especially  those 
of  Stow  and  Pestalozzi — The  one  teaching  chiefly  through  words  "  picturing  out,"  as 
it  is  called,  the  other  by  things  and  words  in  their  appropriate  place — The  specious 
boast  of  selecting  what  is  good  from  every  system — The  motto,  "  That  is  the  best 
system  which  brings  the  powers  of  the  mind  under  the  best  discipline,"  a  test — The 
system  of  Pestalozzi  founded  on  principles  and  adapted  to  the  human  mind,  conse- 
quently a  philosophical  system,  might  be  called  the  natural  system — Different  value 
of  principles  and  plans — Illustration  of  this  shown  in  the  different  kinds  of  value  apper- 
taining to  wheat  and  bread — Advantage  of  principles  in  everything — Many  Teachers 
appreciate  plans  only — Principles  the  only  true  and  safe  guide. 

12.  Summary  of  the  leading  Principles  of  Pestalozzi. 

1.  Education  ought  to  be  essentially  religious  and  moral. 

2.  Education  ought  to  be  essentially  organic  and  complete,  and  not  mechanical,  su- 
perficial, and  partial,  it  should  penetrate  and  regulate  the  entire  being. 

3.  Education  ought  to  be  free  and  natural  instead  of  being  cramped,  confined,  sur- 
vile — The  child  should  have  sufficient  liberty  to  manifest  decidedly  his  individual 
character. 

4.  Education  ought  to  be  harmonious  in  all  its  parts — It  should  be  so  carried  on  that 
all  the  natural  faculties,  and  all  the  acquired  knowledge  agree  and  harmonize. 

5.  Education  should  be  based  on  intuition,  on  a  clear  and  distinct  perception  of  the 
subject  to  be  learned. 

6.  Education  should  be  gradual  and  progressive,  united  in  all  parts,  like  a  chain, 
forming  a  continued  series  without  gaps. 

7.  Education  should  be  of  a  mixed  character,  uniting  the  private  and  the  public ;  it 
should  cultivate  at  the  same  time  the  social  and  domestic  spirit. 

8.  Education  should  be  synthetical — every  thing  taught  should  be  first  reduced  into 
its  elements  by  the  Teacher. 

9.  Education  should  be  practical,  drawing  its  means  of  development  from  the  actual 
circumstances  of  life. 

II. — THE  ART  OF  TEACHING.    ^ 

1. — INTRODUCTORY  COURSE. 

1 .  Instructions  as  to  the  Mode  of  giving  Familiar  or  Conversational  Lessons,  and  on  the 
subjects  chosen  for  such  lessons  in  the  Practicing  Schools  of  the  Institution. 

2.  The  Examination  and  Analysis  of  Lessons  selected  from  "  Model  Lessons,"  a  work 
published  by  the  Society. 

3.  Drawing  out  Sketches  of  Lessons  on  various  Subjects,  taking  those  before  analyzed 
as  examples. 

4.  Different  Methods  of  giving  Lessons  Compared,  with  a  view  to  point  out  which  are 
bad  and  which  good,  also  the  methods  suitable  to  different  subjects. 

5.  On  the  Art  of  Questioning. — The  importance  of  understanding  this  art — One  of  the 
plans  of  teaching  much  used  by  Pestalozzi — Different  objects  in  view  in  questioning — 
Questions  which  only  exercise  memory — Advantages  of  questioning — Rules  to  be  ob 
served  and  mistakes  avoided — Examples  of  different  kinds  of  questions — Of  a  train  of 
questions — Practice  in  the  art  of  questioning. 

2. — ON   GALLERY    INSTRUCTION. 

1.  Introduction. — The  nature  and  importance  of  gallery  instruction — Children  brought 
under  the  direct  influence  of  the  Teacher — Facility  thus  afforded   for  securing  order, 
attention,  progress,  moral  training — Value  in  economizing  labor — The  principle  of  suc- 
cess to  be  found  in  the  power  of  the  sympathy  of  numbers — Extent  to  which  Teachers 
should  avail  themselves  of  this  sympathy — Its  abuses — Duties  connected  with  gallery 
instruction. 

2.  Preparation  of  Lessons. — Directions  for  making  a  good  sketch — Advantages  of  a 

3 


34  SCHOOL  MANAGEMENT  AND  THE  ART  OF  TEACHING. 

full  sketch — Importance  of  determining  beforehand  the  chief  points  of  the  lesson,  and 
the  method  of  working  them  out. 

a  3.  The  Subject  matter. — Importance  of  attention  to  quantity  and  quality — Rules  by 
which  to  be  guided,  and  the  principles  upon  which  based — Advantage  of  clear  and  nat- 
ural arrangement — The  ideas  to  be  thoroughly  worked  into  the  minds  of  the  children — 
sufficient  but  not  too  much  new  matter  to  be  presented  properly,  it  being  almost  "as 
important  how  children  learn  as  what  they  learn." 

.  4.  The  Summary. — Definition  of  a  summary — The  qualities  of  a  good  summary — Its 
uses — Various  ways  of  making  a  summary — Advantage  of  its  being  well  committed  to 
memory  or  written  out  by  the  children. 

5.  Application  of  Moral  'ind  Religious  Lessons. — The  nature  of  this  application  ex- 
plained— The  importance  of  applying  moral  and  religious  instruction — Of  requiring  the 
children  to  make  the  application  themselves — What  is  meant  by  impression — Causes  of 
failure  in  making  religious  instruction  impressive. 

6.  Order,  Interest,  and  Attention. — The  importance  of  order — Causes  of  disorder — 
Various  means  of  obtaining  and  regaining  order — Difference  between  order  and  stiff- 
ness or  restraint — Importance  of  exciting  interest — Means  of  doing  it — Difference  be 
tween  healthful  activity  of  mind  and  excitement — Attention  how  to  be  obtained  and 
kept  up. 

7.  The  Exercise  to  be  given  to  the  Minds  of  Children. — Importance  of  producing  activity 
of  the  mind — Amount  of  mental  exercise  to  be  given — Means  of  giving  it — Teachers  tell 
loo  much — Ways  of  doing  so,  and  causes. 

8.  The  Manner  of  the  Teacher. — Importance  of  manner,  especially  with  young  chil- 
dren— Different  kinds  of  manner — How  each  affects  children — The  power  of  a  decided 
manner— Its  abuse — The  effects  of  the  voice  in  exciting  different  feelings — Tones  of 
voice  suited  to  different  subjects. 

^  9.  Attention  to  the  whole  Gallery. — Temptations  to  attend  to  a  few  children  only — 
Effects — Means  of  keeping  up  general  attention — Difficulties  where  a  gallery  is  unhap- 
pily composed  of  children  of  different  degrees  of  attainment — How  in  part  to  be 
obviated. 

10.  The  Use  to  be  made  of  Incidental  Circumstances,  especially  in  Moral  Training. — 
Enumeration  of  those  which  most  commonly  occur  in  a  gallery,  and  also  in  the  play- 
ground—The influence  that  the  notice  of  incidental  circumstances  has  on  the  children, 
as  well  in  an  intellectual  as  in  a  moral  point  of  view — Cautions  against  the  abuse  of 
this  practice. 

11.  On  the  Language  given  to  Children. — Relation  of  language  to  ideas — Right  time  of 
supplying  language — Necessity  for  clearness  and  simplicity — Fine  words  and  technical 
terms  to  be  avoided. 

3. — ON    CLASS    INSTRUCTION. 

Use  of  class  lessons — Mechanical  arrangements — Apparatus — Amount  of  class  in- 
struction to  be  given — Subjects. 

4. — ON    THE    SUBJECTS    OF  INSTRUCTION,    ETC.,    PROPER    FOR  AN    INFANT    SCHOOL. 

1.  On  the  Principles  that  should  Regulate. — The  choice  of  subjects  should  be  suitable  to 
the  children's  age — Elementary  character  of  the  subjects — Necessity  of  having  a  een- 
eral  design  in  each  course  of  lessons,  as  well  as  a  particular  design  in  each  lesson — 
The  importance  of  the  instruction  being  of  a  graduated  character — Of  its  commencing 
at  the  right  starting  point — Subjects  should  be  varied — The  reason  and  principles  upon 
which  this  is  founded. 

2-  The  subject  stated. — Color— Object  in  view  in  lessons  on  color,  and  their  suitable- 
ness to  this  object,  and  to  infant  minds — The  graduated  course  of  these  lessons,  with 
reference  to  the  work  published  by  the  Society,  entitled,  "  Graduated  course  of  Instruc- 
tion for  Infant  Schools  and  Nurseries" — Methods  to  be  adopted  in  giving  lessons — Prin- 
ciples  to  be  deduced. 

3.  The  other  subjects  treated  in  a  similar  manner — Form — Size — Weight — Place — 
Number— Physical  actions  and  employments — Sounds,  including  practice  in  singing- 
Common  objects — Pictures  of  common  objects — Drawing  before  children— Human 
body — Animals— Plants — Language— Reading,  Spelling,  Writing — Pieces  of  poetry — 
Moral  instruction — Religious  instruction. 

5. — ON  THE  SUBJECTS  OF  INSTRUCTION,  ETC.,  PROPER  FOR  A  JUVENILE  SCHOOL. 
1.  Points  in  which  a  Juvenile  School  differs  from  an  Infant  Sc?tool. — As  to  its  organiza- 
tion— Division  of  time — Classification  of  children — Home-work — Employment  of  Pupil- 
Teachers — Subjects  of  instruction  calling  the  reasoning  powers  more  into  exercise — 
Method  of  giving  such  subjects  a  more  continuous  and  systematic  character — Mode  of 
treating  the  children — Morally,  throwing  them  more  upon  their  own  responsibi.ity — 
Intellectually,  making  them  more  independent  of  their  Teachers,  and  more  accustomed 
to  gain  information  and  knowledge  from  books,  teaching  them  early  "  to  learn  how  to 
learn,"  i.  e.,  to  be  self-educators. 


SCHOOL  MANAGEMENT  AND  THE  ART  OF  TEACHING.  35 

III. — THE  SCHOOL-ROOM,  AS  TO  ITS  ARRANGEMENT  AND  MANAGEMENT.  /> 

1.  The   School-room. — Influence  of  the  appearance  of  the  school-room  on  the  chil- 
dren's character — Its  effect  on  visitors — Desks  and  their  arrangement — Cleaning — Yen 
tilation— Temperature — Order  and  decoration — Apparatus — What  it  is — Its  right  appre 
ciation — Care  to  be  taken  of  it. 

2.  The  Opening  of  a  New  School,  6fC. — Preliminary  steps  to  be  taken — Difficulties — 
Spirit  in  which  to  commence — Plans  to  be  adopted — Admission  of  children — Register 
and  other  books — Payments, 

3.  The  Organization  of  a  School. — What  it  means — Importance  of  good  organization — 
Plans  to  be  adopted — Treatment  of  new  scholars — Points  requiring  attention,  as  time- 
tables, programmes,  distribution  of  work,  &c. 

4.  Division  or  Classification  of  the  Children. — Importance  of  classification  of  the  chil- 
dren of  an  Infant  School — Too  much  neglected  hitherto — The  advantage  seen  in  the 
Model  Schools  of  the  Institution — Arrangement  in  galleries  and  classes — Principle 
upon  which  this  is  made,  of  proficiency,  not  age  or  size — The  difficulties  of  Infant 
Schools,  when  Teachers  have  no  assistance. 

5.  Regular  and  punctual  Attendance,  and  the  means  of  insuring  it. — Importance  of  the 
subject — Different  causes   of  irregular   attendance — Method  of  dealing  with   each — 
Means  for  securing  attendance,  supplying  a  good  education,  having  well  defined  and 
positive  rules — Quarterly  pre-payment — Punctual  attendance — How  much  depending 
on  the  Teacher's  own  habits — Closing  the  door  at  a  fixed  hour — Visiting  the  parents,  &c. 

6.  The  Dinner  hour  and  arrangements  for  it. — The  Teacher's  presence  necessary — Its 
inconvenience  considered — The  social  and  moral  effects  of  superintending  children  at 
dinner. 

7.  The  Physical   State  of  the  Children. — Teacher's   duties  with  respect  to   health, 
cleanliness,  and  neatness — Duties  of  parents  not  to  be  too  much  interferred  with — 
Means  of  cultivating  cleanliness,  neatness,  &c. — The  effects. 

8.  The  Play-ground. — Physical  education — Its  importance — Provision  to  be  made 
for  its  connection  with  a  school — Advantages  of  the  play-ground  in  reference  to  moral 
instruction  and  moral  training — Its  bearing  on  the  health  and  comfort  of  the  Teacher — 
Their  objections  answered — Tact  required  in  the  superintendence  of  the  play-ground — 
Apparatus,  games,  &c. — Time  to  be  allotted  to  exercise — Objections  of  parents  met. 

9.  Monitors,  Pupil-  Teachers,  and  Paid-Assistants. — Monitors,  these  "  necessary  evils," 
as  they  have  been  called,  fast  disappearing — Still  often  found  useful — Relative  value 
of  Monitors  and  Pupil-Teachers,  and  principle  on  which  to  be  ascertained — The  de- 
partments of  labor  for  which  each  best  fitted — Pestalozzi's  method  of  preparing  Moni- 
tors, and  the  work  allotted  them — Instruction  of  Pupil-Teachers,  general  and  special — 
Their  management— Special   cases  examined — Pupil-Teachers  almost  essential  to  a 
good  school,  and  amply  repay  labors  of  first  year  or  two — to  be  early  trained  to  "  self- 
education" — When  so  trained  a  great  relief  to  the  Teacher — Always  to  be  had  where 
practicable. 

10.  Examinations,  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  public — The  parents — The  Teacher — 
The  design  and  special  advantages  of  each — Manner  of  conducting  them — Abuses — 
Addresses  to  parents  a  most  desirable  adjunct — Suitable  topics  for  such  addresses. 

11.  Holidays,  their  use  and  number — Never  to  be  given  at  fairs,  wakes,  &c. — Not 
generally  desired  by  children  in  a  well-conducted  school. 

12.  Dealing  with  Parents. — Position  of  the  parent — Its  relation  to  the  Teacher — Con- 
clusions— The  double  duty  of  a  Teacher  to  the  parent  and  the  school — Course  to  be 
taken — Necessity  of  a  conciliatory  manner  in  dealing  with  parents  who  will  not  submit 
to  rules — On  punishing  children  at  the  request  of  parents. 

13.  Visitors,  special  and  casual — Connection  of  the  former  with  the  school — Attention 
and  courtesy  due  to  them — How  far  the  usual  arrangement  of  a  school  may  be  changed 
for  visitors — Their  suggestions — Spirit  in  which  to  be  taken — Use  to  be  made  of  them. 

14.  Inspectors. — The  peculiar  character  of  their  office — Inspection  always  to  be  ob- 
tained when  practicable — Its  value  to  a  good  Teacher — Their  view  of  a  school  con- 
trasted with  that  of  the  Teacher — Their  relation  as  well  to  the  Teacher  as  to  the  Pat- 
ron— The   Teacher's  best  friend — Inspection  anticipated — Preparation  to  be  made — 
Lessons  to  be  given  before  Inspector,  as  at  other  times. 

15.  Patrons  and   Committees. — Relation  to  the  school — Claims — The  blessing  of  a 
good  Patron — Difficulties  with  Patrons  or  Committees — The  self-will  and  pride  of  a 
Teacher  not  to  be  mistaken  for  conscience,  or  the  love  of  doing  good — Principles  and 
ends  to  be  kept  in  view  rather  than  plans — Not  to  thwart  or  oppose  even  when  not  con 
vinced — to  give  way  in  minor  matters  if  vital  points  are  untouched — Circumstances 
which  appear  to  justify  giving  up  a  school. 

IV. — THE  GOVERNMENT  OF  A  SCHOOL. 

1.  The  Nature  and  Object  of  this  Government. — All  plans  of  government,  if  good,  must 
be  adapted  to  the  uniform  tendencies  of  human  nature — Qualifications  required  in 
order  to  govern  well — Importance  of  government  in  a  school,  as  often  giving  to  the 


36       SCHOOL  MANAGEMENT  AND  THE  ART  OF  TEACHING. 

child  first  ideas  of  subordination — Essential  also  to  the  comfort  of  the  Teacher — To 
the  progress  and  happiness  of  the  children — Disorder  the  master  defect  of  many  schools 
— Dislike  to  Teachers  often  caused  by  misgovernment. 

2.  A  knowledge  of  the  Principles  of  Action  in  Childhood  required  in  order  to  Govern 
well. — The  principles  enumerated — Their  importance — Scripture  references  on  the  in- 
fluence of  habits — Wisdom  and  beneficence  of  the  Creator  seen  in  the  early  formation 
and  power  of  habits — Difficulty  of  ascertaining  motives — Importance  of  knowing  them — 
The  use  to  be  made  of  them  in  governing  a  school. 

3.  Parental  Government. — Different  kind  of  rule  as  to  their  spirit — The  political — 
The  military — The  family — Characteristics  of  each — Reasonableness  of  requiring  the 
parental  spirit  in  Teachers — In  what  it  consists — Effects  of  possessing  the  spirit — The 
parental  spirit  manifested  by  God — Seen  in  Christ — The  parental  spirit  should  govern 
our  schools — Our  debt  to  Pestalozzi  for  advocating  it  so  powerfully — His  fundamental 
principle  in  all  moral  development  and  training. 

4.  Authority — Meaning  of  the  term — Abuses  of  authority — Modern  mistakes — Import- 
ance of  authority  in  the  school-room — How  to  be  used — Adaptation  to  the  nature  of  the 
child — Mistakes  as  to  governing  by  love  alone — Rules  to  be  adopted  in  establishing  and 
maintaining  authority. 

5.  Kindness. — Distinguished  from  other  affections — Love  essential  to  a  Teacher — 
Shock  often   received   by  children   when   transferred   from   a  mother  to  an  unkind 
Teacher — Influence  of  Kindness— Principles  on  which   based — Manner  of  carrying 
them  out — Caution  against  extremes. 

6.  Justice. — Definition — Temptations  to  partiality — Children's  appreciation  of  jus 
tice — Written  rules  often  useful. 

7.  Fear. — Its  abuses  as  a  principle  of  government  shown  in  the  conduct  of  parents, 
teachers,  and  nurses — The  use  of  fear  in  the  moral  economy  of  the  child,  and  conse- 
quently its  use  by  the  Teacher — Cautions. 

8.  Influence. — What  it  is  to  govern  with  the  will  of  a  child — Means  of  obtaining  in- 
flence— its  true  value  both  in  the  Infant  and  Juvenile  School. 

9.  Appeal  to  Principle. — Nature  of  principle,  or  sense  of  right  and  wrong — Relative 
position  among  motives  of  action — Advantages — The  result,  self-government,  &c. — 
Perfection  of  a  school  as  to  government,  when  good  conduct  proceeds  from  principle. 

10.  Prevention. — Importance  of  this  principle  as  applied  to  the  government  of  a 
school — Children   to   have   full  occupation — To  associate   pleasure   with  learning — 
Teacher  to  call  in  aid  the  public  opinion  of  the  school — To  obtain  the  co-operation  of 
parents. 

11.  Rewards. — What  they  are — How  they  act — Injurious  as  being  an  artificial  ex- 
citement— As  giving  wrong  views  both  of  justice  and  merit — As  rousing  a  mercenary 
spirit — As  exciting  vanity  arid  pride— Means  to  be  used  to  make  promised  rewards  un- 
necessary— Example  of  Hofwyl — From  our  Infant  Schools — The  highest  motives  to  be 
cultivated — Animal   motives  to  be  properly  directed — Different  ways   of  rewarding 
merit — Value  of  a  reward  consists  not  in  the  actual  value  of  what  is  bestowed,  but  in 
the  association  created — Reward  occasional  and  not  expected — When  it  is  not  an  in- 
centive to  exertion,  but  a  proof  that  merit  is  recognized,  it  gives  the  idea  of  justice. 

12.  Punishments. — Nature,  design,  and  spirit — Difference  between  punishment,  cor- 
rection,  and  discipline — The  true   end   of  punishment — Mistakes  of  the   passionate 
Teacher — Effects  of  these  on   the  child — Punishment  should  arise  out  of  the  fault — 
God's  dealings  with  us  our  example — Natural  punishments  enumerated — Children  to 
be  shown  the  connection  between  sin  and  punishment — An  unrarying  punishment  im- 
possible— Should  differ  according  to  character  and  disposition,  and  the  nature  of  faults, 
&c. — Evils  of  severe  punishments — Importance  of  discrimination — Public  exposure  as 
a  punishment — Spirit  that  leads  a  teacher  to  expose  her  pupils  for  her  own  gratifica- 
tion— Effects  of  exposure  on  different  dispositions,  and  on   spectators — Corporal  pun- 
ishment— Former  and   present  practice  contrasted — Opinion  of  Dr.  Arnold   and  Dr. 
Bryce — Pestalozzi's  rules  for  using  it — Its  absence  in  a  good  school — Expulsion  when 
to  be  resorted  to — Circumstances  to  attend  it. 

13.  Emulation. — Nature  of  the  principle— Usual  application — Meaning  of  the  word- 
Natural  emulation,  distinguished  from  Scripture  emulation—  "  Generous  rivalry,"  and 
"  rivalry  a  means  of  self-knowledge,"  false  ideas — Natural  emulation  not  to  be  stimu- 
lated— Difficulties  of  a  Teacher  not  using  emulation — Substitutes  for  it,  as — Desire  to 
overcome  difficulties— To  gain  knowledge — To  please  a  much-loved  Teacher,  &c. 


MEMOIR  OF  PESTALOZZI. 
$2    Jiarl   ban 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 

LIPB  OF  PBSTALOZZI.    By  Karl  von  Raumer, 37 

Preface, 41 

I.  Childhood  and  Youth,  1746-1767, 49 

II.  Agricultural  and  Educational  Experiments  at  Neuhof,  1767,             ?       •       -       -  56 

III.  The  Evening  Hour  of  a  Hermit,  1780, 59 

IV.  Leonard  and  Gertrude,  1781, 62 

V.  Life  and  Writings  between  1781  and  1798, 65 

VI.  Experience  at  Stanz,  1798, 68 

VII.  "               Burgdorf,  1799-1804,    ...» 71 

VIII.  "              Buchsee,  1804, 87 

IX.          "              Yverdun,  1805, 87 

X.  Last  Years,  1815-1827, 115 

XI.  Relations  to  Christianity, 116 

XII.  Retrospect, 123 


INTRODUCTION. 

BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  OF  KARL  VON  RAUilER, 


OUT  of  the  numerous  memoirs,  brief  and  extended,  which  have  ap- 
peared in  Switzerland  and  Germany,  of  the'great  Swiss  educator,  we 
select  that  by  Prof.  Karl  von  Raumer,  in  the  second  volume  of  his 
elaborate  "History  of  Pedagogy"*  It  is  at  once  condensed  and 
sufficiently  full  and  minute  to  give  a  correct,  vivid  picture  of  Pesta- 
lozzi's  own  diversified  and  troubled  career  as  a  man  and  an  educator,  and 
of  his  numerous  contributions  to  the  literature  of  education.  Beyond 
any  other  of  his  biographers,  Prof.  Raumer  has  not  only  a  rich  and 
varied  scholarship,  but  full  and  accurate  knowledge  of  the  past  his- 
tory of  education  and  of  schools,  and  a  disposition  to  do  justice  to 
Pestalozzi's  large-hearted  as  well  as  original  contributions  to  this  de- 
partment of  human  progress. 

KARL  VON  RAUMER,  was  born  at  Worlitz,  in  the  duchy  of 
Anhalt-Dessau,  on  the  9th  of  April,  1783.  Until  his  fourteenth 
year,  he  was  under  private  instruction  at  home ;  was  then,  with  his 
brother,  (Frederic,  the  present  Minister  of  Public  Instruction 
in  Prussia,)  placed  at  the  Joachimsthal  Gymnasium  at  Berlin ; 
in  1801,  went  thence  to  the  university  of  Gottingen  to  study  law;  in 
1803,  to  Halle,  to  attend  the  lectures  of  Wolf  and  Steffens,  and  in 
1805,  to  Freiberg,  where  he  devoted  himself  to  mineralogy  and  geol- 
ogy under  Werner.  After  exploring  the  mountain  chains  in  Germany 
and  France,  he  went  to  Paris,  in  the  autumn  of  1808  to  prosecute 
his  geological  studies,  where  a  change  in  his  plans  of  life  occurred, 
which  he  thus  describes  in  a  chapter  of  his  published  lectures  on 
education : 

"  At  Paris  my  views  and  intentions  in  regard  to  the  future  occupation  of  my 
life  underwent  a  great  change,  which  was  brought  about  by  two  different 
causes.  For  one  thing,  I  had  learnt  by  my  own  experience  how  little  a  single 
individual  is  able  to  accomplish  for  the  science  of  mineralogy,  even  if  he  goes 
to  work  with  the  best  will  and  the  most  toilsome  industry ;  that  it  required, 
much  more,  the  united,  intelligent  and  persevering  labors  of  many,  in  order  to 
pass  from  a  mere  belief  in  the  laws  of  mineralogy  to  an  actual  perception  of  their 
operation  in  mountain  chains.  I  thus  became  convinced  that  we  ought  not  to 
work  for  science  as  individuals,  but  that  we  should,  after  passing  through  our 
own  apprenticeship,  instruct  others  and  train  them  for  the  pursuit  of  science. 
How  much  more  useful  is  it,  thought  I,  to  produce  one  new  workman  than  one 

*Geschichte  der  Pddagogik  vom  Wicderaiifblvkcn  klassischer  studicn  bis  aus  unaeie  zeit 
Stuttgart,  1847:  3  vols. 


42  RAUMER'S  HISTORY  OF  PEDAGOGIC  S. 

single  new  work,  seeing  that  the  former  can  execute  many  works,  and  even 
train  other  workmen.  This  conviction  caused  me  to  turn  my  attention  to  the 
question  of  education.  But  a  second  cause  operated  in  a  still  higher  degree  to 
produce  the  same  result.  The  sad  time  that  had  passed  since  1806  had  alfected 
me  with  horror  and  dismay;  it  had  made  me  wish  to  shun  the  society  of  my 
fellow-men,  and  had  quite  disposed  me  to  give  myself  up  to  the  most  solitary  re- 
searches among  the  mountains.  This  disposition  was  strengthened  at  Paris,  in 
the  midst  of  the  haughty  despisers  of  our  German  fatherland.  But  it  was  here, 
too,  where  hope  first  dawned  within  me,  where  a  solitary  light  beamed  toward 
me  through  the  darkness  of  night.  I  read  Pestalozzi,  and  what  Fichte  says,  in 
his  'Addresses  to  the  German  Nation,'  about  Pestalozzi  and  education.  The 
thought,  that  a  new  and  better  Germany  must  rise  from  the  ruins  of  the  old  one, 
that  youthful  blossoms  must  spring  from  the  mouldering  soil,  took  strong  hold 
of  me.  In  this  manner,  there  awoke  within  me  a  determination  to  visit  Pesta- 
lozzi at  Yverdun. 

Fichte's  Addresses  had  great  influence  on  me.  Surrounded  by  Frenchmen, 
the  brave  man  pointed  out  to  his  Berlin  hearers  in  what  way  they  might  cast 
Dff  the  French  yoke,  and  renew  and  strengthen  their  nationality. 

He  promised  deliverance  especially  through  a  national  education  of  the 
Germans,  which  he  indicated  as  the  commencement  of  an  entire  reformation  of 
the  human  race,  by  which  the  spirit  should  gain  a  complete  ascendency  over 
.he  flesh.  To  the  question,  to  which  of  the  existing  institutions  of  the  actual 
world  he  would  annex  the  duty  of  carrying  out  the  new  education,  Fichte  an- 
swered, '  To  the  course  of  instruction  which  has  been  invented  and  brought 
forward  by  Henry  Pestalozzi,  and  which  is  now  being  successfully  carried  out 
under  his  direction.' 

He  then  gives  an  account  of  Pestalozzi,  and  compares  him  with  Luther,  es- 
pecially in  regard  to  his  love  for  the  poor  and  destitute.  His  immediate  object, 
says  Fichte,  was  to  help  these  by  means  of  education,  but  he  had  produced 
something  higher  than  a  scheme  of  popular  education, — he  had  produced  a  plan 
of  national  education  which  should  embrace  all  classes  of  society. 

Further  on  he  expresses  himself  in  his  peculiar  manner  on  the  subject  of 
Pestalozzi's  method,  which  he  criticises.  He  takes  exception  to  Pestalozzi's 
view  of  language,  namely,  '  as  a  means  of  raising  mankind  from  dim  perceptions 
to  clear  ideas,'  and  to  the  Book  for  Mothers.  On  the  other  hand,  he  strongly 
recommends  the  development  of  bodily  skill  and  dexterity  proposed  by  Pesta- 
lozzi, for  this,  among  other  reasons,  that  it  would  make  the  whole  nation  tit  for 
military  service,  and  thus  remove  the  necessity  for  a  standing  army.  Like  Pes- 
talozzi, he  attaches  a  high  value  to  the  skill  necessary  for  gaining  a  livelihood, 
as  a  condition  of  an  honorable  political  existence. 

He  especially  insists  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  State  to  charge  itself  with  edu- 
cation. He  spoke  in  the  year  1808,  in  the  capital  of  Prussia,  which  had  been 
deeply  humiliated  by  the  unhappy  war  of  the  preceding  years,  and  in  the  most 
hopeless  period  of  Germany's  history. 

'  Would  that  the  state,'  he  said  to  a  Prussian  audience,  among  whom  were 
several  high  officers  of  state,  '  would  look  its  present  peculiar  condition  steadily 
in  the  face,  and  acknowledge  to  itself  what  that  condition  really  is ;  would  that 
it  could  clearly  perceive  that  there  remains  for  it  no  other  sphere  in  which  it 
can  act  and  resolve  as  an  independent  State,  except  the  education  of  the  rising 
generation ;  that,  unless  it  is  absolutely  determined  to  do  nothing,  this  is  now  all 
it  can  do ;  but  that  the  merit  of  doing  this  would  be  conceded  to  it  undiminished 
and  unenvied.  That  we  are  no  longer  able  to  offer  an  active  resistance,  was 
before  presupposed  as  obvious,  and  as  acknowledged  by  every  one.  How  then 
can  we  defend  our  continued  existence,  obtained  by  submission,  against  the  re- 
proach of  cowardice  and  an  unworthy  love  of  life  ?  In  no  other  way  than  by 
resolving  not  to  live  for  ourselves,  and  by  acting  up  to  this  resolution;  by 
raising  up  a  worthy  posterity,  and  by  preserving  our  own  existence  solely  in 
order  that  we  may  accomplish  this  object.  If  we  had  not  this  first  object  of 
life,  what  else  were  there  for  us  to  do  ?  Our  constitutions  will  be  made  for  us, 
the  alliances  which  we  are  to  form,  and  the  direction  in  which  our  military  re- 
sources shall  be  applied,  will  be  indicated  to  us,  a  statute-book  will  be  lent  to 
us,  even  the  administration  of  justice  will  sometimes  be  taken  out  of  our  hands; 
we  shall  be  relieved  of  all  these  cares  for  the  next  years  to  coine.  Education 


RAUMER'S  HISTORY  OF  PEDAGOGICS.  43 

alone  has  not  been  thought  of;  if  we  are  seeking  for  an  occupation,  let  us  seize 
this !  We  may  expect  that  in  this  occupation  we  shall  be  left  undisturbed.  I 
hope,  (perhaps  I  deceive  myself,  but  as  I  have  only  this  hope  still  to  live  for,  I 
can  not  cease  to  hope,)  that  I  convince  some  Germans,  and  that  I  shall  bring 
them  to  see  that  it  is  education  alone  which  can  save  us  from  all  the  evils  by 
which  we  are  oppressed.  I  count  especially  on  this,  as  a  favorable  circumstance, 
that  our  need  will  have  rendered  us  more  disposed  to  attentive  observation  and 
serious  reflection  than  we  were  in  the  day  of  our  prosperity.  Foreign  lands 
have  other  consolations  and  other  remedies ;  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  they 
would  pay  any  attention,  or  give  any  credit  to  this  idea,  should  it  ever  reach 
them ;  I  will  much  rather  hope  that  it  will  be  a  rich  source  of  amusement  to 
the  readers  of  their  journals,  if  they  ever  learn  that  any  one  promises  himself  so 
great  things  from  education.' 

It  may  easily  be  imagined  how  deep  an  impression  such  words  made  on  me, 
as  I  read  them  ha  Paris,  the  imperial  seat  of  tyranny,  at  a  time  when  I  was  in  a 
state  of  profound  melancholy,  caused  by  the  ignominious  slavery  of  my  poor 
beloved  country.  There  also  I  was  absorbed  in  the  perusal  of  Pestalozzi'a 
work,  '  How  Gertrude  teaches  her  children.'  The  passages  of  deep  pathos  in 
the  book  took  powerful  hold  of  my  mind,  the  new  and  great  ideas  excited  strong 
hopes  in  me ;  at  that  time  I  was  carried  away  on  the  wings  of  those  hopes  over 
Pestalozzi's  errors  and  failures,  and  I  had  not  the  experience  which  would  have 
enabled  me  to  detect  these  easily,  and  to  examine  them  critically. 

About  the  same  time  I  read  the  '  Report  to  the  Parents  on  the  state  of  the 
Pestalozzian  Institution;'  it  removed  every  doubt  in  my  mind  as  to  the  possi- 
bility of  seeing  my  boldest  hopes  realized.  Hereupon,  I  immediately  resolved 
to  go  to  Yverdun,  which  appeared  to  me  a  green  oasis,  full  of  fresh  and  living 
springs,  in  the  midst  of  the  great  desert  of  my  native  land,  on  which  rested  the 
curse  of  Napoleon." 

At  an  age  when  most  men,  of  his  acknowledged  ability  and  schol- 
arship, are  only  thinking  of  securing  a  civil  employment,  which  shall 
bring  both  riches  and  honor,  Von  Raumer  hastened  to  Pestalozzi  at 
Yverdun,  where  he  devoted  himself,  for  nearly  two  years,  to  a  study 
of  the  principles  and  methods  of  elementary  instruction,  as  illustrated 
by  the  great  Swiss  educator. 

Returning  from  Switzerland,  in  May,  1810,  Von  Raumer  accepted 
an  appointment  of  regular  professor  at  Halle,  with  a  handsome 
salary ;  but,  not  finding  the  pleasure  he  anticipated  in  his  professorial 
lectures,  he  soon  after  gave  up  the  post,  and  proceeded  to  establish  a 
private  school  at  Nuremberg,  where  he  strove  to  realize  his  own  ideal 
of  an  educational  institution.  In  this  enterprise  he  was  not  so  imme- 
diately successful  as  he  hoped  to  be.  In  1822  he  married  a  daughter 
of  Kappellmeister  Reichardt,  and,  by  the  advice  of  his  friends,  he  re- 
turned to  academic  life  by  accepting  the  appointment  of  professor  of 
natural  history,  at  Erlangen.  In  addition  to  his  regular  duties,  he 
found  time  to  prepare  and  deliver  occasional  lectures  on  the  "  History 
of  Pedagogy  from  the  revival  of  classical  learning  to  our  own  time.'* 
These  lectures  were  subsequently  published  in  three  parts — the  first 
of  which  was  issued  in  ]  843.  Of  the  origin  and  plan  of  the  work 
the  author  thus  speaks  in  the  preface  to  the  complete  edition  in 
1846. 

"  This  work  has  grown  out  of  a  series  of  lectures,  upon  the  history  of  education, 


44  RAUMER'S  HISTORY  OF  PEDAGOGICS. 

which  I  delivered,  in  1822,  at  Halle,  and  several  years  later,   from  1838  to 
1842,  at  Erlangen. 

The  reader  may  inquire,  how  it  was  that  my  attention  was  directed  to  this 
subject  ?  If  he  should,  it  will  perhaps  be  sufficient  to  say  in  reply,  that  during 
the  thirty-one  years  of  my  professorship,  I  have  not  merely  interested  myself  in 
the  science  to  which  my  time  was  devoted,  but  also  in  its  corresponding  art,  and 
this  the  more,  because  much  of  the  instruction  which  I  gave  was  additional  to 
my  regular  lectures,  and  imparted  in  the  way  of  dialogue.  This  method  stimu- 
.ated  my  own  thoughts  too,  to  that  degree,  that  I  was  induced  as  early  as  the 
year  1819  to  publish  many  didactical  essays,  and  subsequently,  a  manual  for  in- 
struction in  Natural  History.  But  were  I  called  upon  for  a  more  particular  ex- 
planation, it  would  be  necessary  for  me  to  relate  the  many  experiences  of  my 
somewhat  eventful  life,  both  from  my  passive  years  of  training  and  instruction, 
and  from  my  active  years  of  educating  and  instructing  others.  This,  however, 
is  a  theme,  to  which  I  can  not  do  justice  within  the  brief,  compass  of  a  preface ; 
S  hereafter  an  opportunity  shall  offer,  I  may  treat  it  in  another  place. 

And  yet  after  all,  the  book  itself  must  bear  testimony  to  the  fitness  of  the 
author  for  his  task.  Of  what  avail  is  it  to  me,  to  say  that  I  have  been  taught 
by  Meierotto,  Buttman,  Frederick  Augustus,  Wolfj  Steffens,  Werner,  Pestalozzi, 
and  other  distinguished  men?  When  I  have  said  all  this,  have  I  done  any 
more  than  to  show  that  the  author  of  this  book  has  had  the  very  best  oppor- 
tunity to  learn  what  is  just  and  true  ? 

My  book  begins  with  the  revival  of  classical  learning.  And  Germany  I 
aave  had  preeminently  in  view.  Why,  by  way  of  introduction,  I  have  given  a 
orief  history  of  the  growth  of  learning  in  Italy  from  Dante  to  the  age  of  Leo  X., 
the  reader  will  ascertain  from  the  book  itself.  He  will  be  convinced,  if  not  at 
the  outset,  yet  as  he  reads  further,  that  this  introduction  is  absolutely  necessary 
to  a  correct  understanding  of  German  didactics. 

A  history  of  didactics  must  present  the  various  standards  of  mental  culture, 
which  a  nation  proposes  to  itself  during  its  successive  eras  of  intellectual  devel- 
opment, and  then  the  modes  of  instruction  which  are  adopted  in  each  era,  in 
order  to  realize  its  peculiar  standard  in  the  rising  generation.  In  distinguished 
men  that  standard  of  culture  manifests  itself  to  us  in  person,  so  to  speak,  and 
hence  they  exert  a  controlling  influence  upon  didactics,  though  they  may  not 
themselves  be  teachers.  'A  lofty  example  stirs  up  a  spirit  of  emulation,  and 
discloses  deeper  principles  to  guide  the  judgment.' 

But  their  action  upon  the  intellectual  culture  of  their  countrymen  has  a  re- 
doubled power,  when  at  the  same  time  they  labor  directly  at  the  work  of  teach- 
ing, as  both  Luther  and  Melancthon  did  for  years.  This  consideration  haa 
induced  me  to  select  my  characters  for  this  history  among  distinguished  teachers, 
those  who  were  held  in  the  highest  respect  by  their  contemporaries,  and  whose 
example  was  a  pattern  for  multitudes.  Such  an  one  was  John  Sturm  at  Stras- 
burg,  a  rector,  who  with  steady  gaze  pursued  a  definite  educational  aim,  organ- 
izing his  gymnasium  with  the  utmost  skill  and  discernment,  and  carrying  out 
what  he  had  conceived  to  be  the  true  method,  with  the  most  scrupulous  care. 
An  accurate  sketch  of  the  educational  efficiency  of  this  pattern  rector,  based 
upon  original  authorities,  in  my  opinion  conveys  far  more  insight  and  instruction 
than  I  could  hope  to  afford,  were  I  to  entangle  myself  amid  fragmentary  sketches 
of  numberless  ordinary  schools,  framed  upon  Sturm's  plan. 

Thus  much  in  explanation  of  the  fact  that  this  history  has  taken  the  form 
of  a  series  of  biographies.  And  in  view  of  the  surprising  differences  among  the 
characters  treated  of,  it  can  not  appear  singular,  if  my  sketches  should  be  widely 
different  in  their  form. 

There  was  one  thought,  which  I  will  own  occasioned  me  abundant  perplexi- 
ty during  my  labors.  If  I  was  about  to  describe  a  man,  who,  I  had  reason  to 
suppose,  was  more  or  less  unknown  to  most  of  my  readers,  I  went  about  the 
task  with  a  light  heart,  and  depicted  his  life  and  labors  in  their  full  proportions, 
communicating  every  thing  which  could,  by  any  possibility,  render  his  image 
clearer  and  more  lifelike  to  the  reader.  But  how  different  the  case,  when  the 
educational  efficiency  of  Luther  is  to  be  set  forth.  'My  readers,'  I  say  to  my- 
self, '  have  long  been  acquainted  with  the  man,  and  they  will  not  thank  me  for 
the  information  that  he  was  born  at  Eisleben,  on  the  10th  of  November,  1483 ; 
as  if  they  had  not  known  this  from  their  youth  up.'  I  am,  therefore,  compelled 


RAUMER'S  HISTORY  OF  PEDAGOGICS.  45 

to  omit  all  such  particulars,  and  to  confine  myself  exclusively  to  his  educational 
efficiency.  And  yet  this  did  not  stand  alone ;  but  was  for  the  most  part  united, 
with  its  entire  influence,  both  to  the  church  and  the  state.  As  with  Luther,  so 
also  was  it  with  Melancthon  and  others.  Considerate  readers  will,  hence,  pardon 
me,  I  hope,  when,  in  cases  of  this  kind,  they  are  not  fully  satisfied  with.my  sketches. 

In  another  respect,  too,  I  ought  perhaps  to  solicit  pardon,  though  I  am  reluct- 
ant to  do  so.  "We  demand  of  historians  an  objective  portraiture,  especially  such 
as  shall  reveal  none  of  the  personal  sympathies  or  antipathies  of  the  writer. 
Now  it  is  proper  to  insist  upon  that  truth  and  justice  which  will  recognize  the 
good  qualities  of  an  enemy,  and  acknowledge  the  faults  of  a  friend.  But  free 
from  likes  aiid  dislikes  I  neither  am,  nor  do  I  desire  to  be,  but,  according  to  the 
dictates  of  my  conscience  and  the  best  of  my  knowledge,  I  will  signify  my  ab- 
horrence of  evil  and  my  delight  in  good,  nor  will  I  ever  put  bitter  for  sweet  or 
Bweet  for  bitter.  It  may  be,  too,  that  a  strict  objectivity  requires  the  historian 
never  to  come  forward  himself  upon  the  stage,  and  never  to  express  his  own 
opinion  in  respect  to  the  facts  which  he  is  called  upon  to  chronicle.  Herein  he 
is  not  allowed  so  much  freedom  of  action  as  the  dramatist,  who,  by  means  either 
of  the  prologue  and  epilogue,  or  of  the  chorus  between  each  of  the  acts,  cornea 
forward  and  converses  with  the  public  upon  the  merits  of  his  play.  Such  an  ob- 
je~  :ivity,  likewise,  I  can  not  boast  myself  of;  for  I  record  my  own  sentiments  freely 
where  I  deem  it  necessary.  And  surely  will  not  the  objectivity  of  history  gain 
more  by  an  unrestricted  personal  interview  with  the  historian,  at  proper  intervals, 
than  by  compelling  him  to  a  perpetual  masquerade  behind  the  facts  and  the  nar- 
rative ?  Certainly  it  will,  for  in  that  case  the  reader  discovers  the  character  of 
the  writer  in  his  opinions,  and  knows  what  he  himself  is  to  expect  from  the  nar- 
ration. He  likewise  observes  with  the  more  readiness,  where  the  writer,  though 
conscientiously  aiming  at  truth  and  impartiality,  nevertheless  betrays  symptoms 
of  human  infirmity  and  party  zeal.  From  a  church  historian,  for  instance,  who 
should  express  his  puritanical  views  without  reserve,  no  intelligent  reader 
would  expect  an  impartial  estimate  of  the  middle  ages. 

Another  motive  also  urges  me  to  a  free  expression  of  my  opinions,  and  that 
is,  in  order  thereby  to  allure  my  readers  to  that  close  familiarity  with  many  im- 
portant educational  subjects  which  the  bare  recital  of  facts  seldom  creates.  If, 
in  this  history,  the  ideal  and  the  methods  of  such  different  teachers  are  depicted, 
these  diverse  views  can  not  but  have  the  effect,  especially  those  practically  en- 
gaged in  training  the  young,  to  induce  a  comparison  of  their  own  aims  and  pro- 
cedure therewith.  Sentiments  that  harmonize  with  our  own  give  us  joy,  and 
inspire  us  with  the  pleasant  consciousness  that  our  course  is  the  right  one ; 
differing  or  opposing  opinions  lead  us  to  scrutinize  our  own  course,  even  as 
were  it  another's;  and  from  such  scrutiny  there  results  either  perseverance 
based  upon  deeper  conviction,  or  a  change  of  course.  I  am  happy  to  acknowl- 
edge, that  this  practical  aim  has  been  my  chief  motive  in  undertaking  the 
present  work,  and  has  been  uppermost  in  my  thoughts  during  its  prosecution. 

As  far  as  possible,  I  have  depended  on  contemporaneous  sources,  and  in 
part  from  exceedingly  rare  works,  and  such,  as,  for  aught  that  I  know  to  the 
contrary,  in  the  present  age,  have  fallen  into  almost  total  oblivion.  And,  for 
this  reason,  I  was  the  more  influenced  to  render  a  service  to  the  reader,  by 
bringing  widely  to  his  view  the  men  and  the  manners  of  earlier  centuries, 
through  the  medium  of  contemporaneous  and  characteristic  quotations." 

We  give  on  the  next  page  the  Table  of  Contents  of  the  three 
volumes  of  Raumer's  great  work. 


46  RAUMER'S  HISTORY  OF  PEDAGOGICS. 

GESCHICHTE  DER  PADAGOGIK  vom  wiederaufbliihen  klassischer  studien  bis 
unsere  zeit.  [History  of  Pedagogics,  or  of  the  Science  and  Art  of  Education,  from 
the  revival  of  classical  studies  down  to  our  time.']  By  Karl  von  Raumer.  3  vols. 
Stuttgard,  2d  edition,  1847. 

VOLUME  I. 

PREFACE. 

1.  Middle  Ages. 

2.  Italy,  from   birth  of    Dante   to  death  of  Petrarca  and   Boccaccio.     1.  Dante. 
2.  Boccaccio.     3.  Petrarca.     Review  of  the  period. 

3.  Development  of  classical  studies  in  Italy,  from  death  of  Petrarca  and   Boccaccio 
until  Leo  X.     1.  John  of  Ravenna  and  Emanuel  Chrysoloras.     2.  The   educators, 
Guarino  and  Vittorino  de  Feltre.     3.  Collection  of  MSS.     Cosmo  de  Medici.   Nicho- 
las V.     First  printing.    4.  Platonic  Academy.     Greek  philologists.    S.Italians.    Phila- 
jelphus.     Poggius.     Laurentius.      6.  Lorenzo  de   Medici.     Ficinus.     Argyropulus. 
Landinus.     Politianus.     Picus  de  Mirandola. 

4.  Leo  X.  and  his  time  ;  its  lights  and  shadows. 

5.  Retrospect  of  Italy.     Transition  to  Germany. 

6.  Germans  and  Dutch,  from    Gerhardus    Magnus   to   Luther,  1340-1483.     1.  The 
Hieronymians.     2.  John  Wessel.     3.  Rudolf  Agricola.     4.  Alexander  Flegius.     5,  6. 
Rudolf  von  Lange  and  Herman  von  den  Busch     7.  Erasmus.     8.  School  at  Schlett- 
stadt.      Ludwig   Dringenberg.      Wimpheling.      Crato.     Lapidus.      Platter.     9.  John 
Reuchlin.     10.  Retrospect. 

Reformation.     Jesuits.     Realism. 

From  Luther  to  the  death  of  Bacon,  1483-1626.  1.  Luther.  2.  Melancthon.  .3. 
Valentin  Friedland.  Trotzendorf.  4.  Michael  Neander.  5.  John  Sturm.  6.  Wur- 
temberg.  1.  Saxony.  8.  Jesuits.  9.  Universities.  10.  Verbal  Realism.  11.  Fran- 
cis Bacon.  12.  Montaigne. 

Appendix. — I.  Thomas  Platter.    II.  Melancthon's  Latin  grammar.    III.  John  Sturm. 

VOLUME  II. 

New  ideas  and  methods  of  education.  Struggle,  mutual  influence,  and  gradual  con- 
nection and  exchange  between  the  old  and  the  new. 

From  Bacon's  death  to  that  of  Pestalozzi.  1.  The  Renovators.  2.  Wolfgang  Ratich. 
3.  The  Thirty  Years'  War.  4.  Comenius.  5.  The  Century  after  the  Thirty  Years' 
War.  6.  Locke.  7.  A.  H.  Franke.  8.  Real  Schools.  9.  Reformatory  Philologists. 
J.  M.  Gesner.  J.  A.  Ernesti.  10.  J.  J.  Rousseau.  11.  Philanthropists.  12.  Ha- 
mann.  13.  Herder.  14.  F.  A.  Wolf.  15.  Pestalozzi. 

Appendix. — 1.  Wolfgang  Ratich  and  his  literature.  II.  Pedagogical  works  of  Come- 
nius. III.  Interior  of  the  Philanthropinum.  IV.  Pestalozzi  and  his  literature.  V.  Pes- 
tiilozzi's  Evening  Hour  of  a  Hermit.  VI.  Pestalozzi  on  Niederer  and  Schmid.  VII. 
Stniniiers  who  remained  some  time  at  Pestalozzi's  institution.  VIII.  Rousseau  and 
Pestalozzi. 

VOLUME  III. 

Early  childhood.  Schools  for  small  children.  School  and  home.  Educational  in- 
stitutions. Tutors  in  families. 

Instruction.     1.  Religion.    2  Latin.     Preface. 

I.  History  of  Latin  in  Christian  times.     Speaking  Latin.     Writing  Latin. 

II.  Methods  of  reading  Latin.  1.  These  methods  changed  within  the  last  three 
centuries.  2.  Adversaries  of  the  old  grammatical  method.  3.  New  methods.  A. 
Learning  Latin  like  the  mother  tongue.  B.  Latin  and  real  instruction  in  connection. 
Comenius.  C.  Combination  of  A  and  B.  D.  Ratich  and  similar  teachers,  a.  Ratich. 
b.  Locke,  c.  Hamilton,  d.  Jacotot.  e.  Ruthardt.  f.  Meierotto.  g,  Jacobs.  Con- 
cluding remarks. 

Aphorisms  on  the  teaching  of  history. 

Natural  history  and  philosophy.  Preface.  1.  Difficulties.  2.  Objections  against 
this  instruction  in  gymnasia  answered.  3.  Grades  of  natural  knowledge.  4.  Begin- 
nings. 5.  Science  and  art.  6.  Mathematical  instruction  and  elementary  instruction 
in  the  knowledge  of  nature.  7.  Instruction  in  mineralogy.  8.  Characteristics  of 
scholars.  9.  Instruction  in  botany.  10.  Unavoidable  inconsistency.  11.  "Mysteri- 
ously clear,"  (Goethe.)  12.  Law  and  liberty.  Concluding  remarks. 

Geometry. 

Arithmetic. 

Physical  training.  1.  Hygiene.  2.  Hardening  the  body  to  toil  and  want.  3. 
Gymnastics.  4.  Cultivation  of  the  senses.  Concluding  observations. 

Appendix. — I.  Ruthardt's  new  Loci  Memoriales.  II.  Teachers  of  mineralogy.  Til. 
Use  of  counters  in  the  elementary  instruction  in  arithmetic.  IV.  Exp'anation  of  <jie 
common  abbreviated  counting  with  cyphers. 


RAUMER'S  HISTORY  OF  PEDAGOGICS.  4f 

Since  the  foregoing  sketch  of  Prof.  Raumer's  own  educational  life 
and  labors  was  published,  we  have  received  a  fourth  and  concluding 
volume  of  his  "  History,  &c."  entitled  "  The  German  Universities"  in 
which  he  introduces  his  own  experience  as  a  student  and  professor,  to 
give  personal  interest  to  the  narrative.  We  copy  the  Dedication  and 
Preface,  and  give  the  Contents  of  the  American  edition,  as  translated 
originally  for  the  "American  Journal  of  Education" 

TO  THB 

STUDENTS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT, 

WHO  HAVE  BEEN  MY  COMPANIONS  FROM  1811  TO  1854, 
I    DEDICATE     THIS     BOOK, 

IN   TRUE   AND   HEARTFELT  LOVE. 
KABL  VON  BATJMER. 

PREFACE. 

The  reader  here  receives  the  conclusion  of  my  work. 

It  is  a  contribution  to  the  history  of  the  Universities.  When  I  commenced  it, 
I  hoped  confidently  to  be  able  to  make  it  greater ;  but  in  proportion  as  I  gained 
an  insight  into  the  difficulty  of  the  enterprise  of  writing  a  complete  history  of  the 
German  Universities,  my  courage  failed.  Many  of  the  difficulties  which  the  his- 
torian of  the  German  people  has  to  overcome,  are  here  also  found  in  the  way,  and 
in  much  increased  dimensions. 

If  all  the  German  universities  possessed  the  same  features,  if  the  character- 
istics of  one  of  them — important  modifications  excepted — would  stand  for  all,  then 
the  task  of  their  historian  would,  apparently,  be  quite  simple.  But  how  different, 
and  how  radically  different,  are  the  universities  from  each  other ! 

Even  the  multiplicity  of  the  German  nationalities,  governments,  and  sects  had 
much  to  do  in  distinguishing  them.  To  compare,  for  instance,  the  universities 
of  GiHtingen  and  Jena,  as  they  were  at  the  beginning  of  the  present  century ; 
what  a  contrast  appears  between  them !  And  how  much  greater  is  the  difference 
between  these  two  Protestant  universities  and  the  Catholic  one  of  Vienna ! 

Further  than  this,  each  single  university  undergoes  such  changes  in  the  course 
of  time,  that  it  appears,  as  it  were,  different  from  itself.  To  instance  the  Uni- 
versity of  Heidelberg :  Catholic  in  the  beginning,  it  became  Lutheran  in  1556, 
Eeformed  in  1560,  Lutheran  in  1576,  Eeformed  again  in  1583 ;  afterward  came 
tinder  the  management  of  the  Jesuits ;  and,  at  the  destruction  of  their  order, 
returned  to  Protestantism. 

To  these  difficulties,  in  the  way  of  the  historian  of  all  the  German  universities, 
is  added  this  one :  that  the  most  important  sources  of  information  fail  him ;  as  we 
have,  namely,  but  few  competent  histories  of  single  universities — such,  for  ex- 
ample, as  Klupfel's  valuable  '•'•History  of  the  University  of  Tubingen.'1'1 

These  considerations  will  sufficiently  excuse  me  for  publishing  only  contribu- 
tions to  a  history  of  the  German  universities,  which  will  sooner  or  later  appear. 

What  I  have  added  under  the  name  of  "Academical  Treatises,"  is  also  a  con- 
tribution to  history ;  for  the  reason  that  these  treatises  will,  of  necessity,  not  be 
worthless  for  some  future  historian  of  the  present  condition  of  our  iiniversities. 

In  conclusion,  I  desire  gratefully  to  acknowledge  the  goodness  of  Chief  Libra- 
rian Hoeck,  for  books  furnished  me  from  the  Gottingen  library.  Mr.  Stenglein, 
librarian  at  Bamberg,  also  most  willingly  furnished  me  with  books  from  it.  The 
use  of  the  Royal  Library  at  Berlin  was  also  afforded  me,  with  distinguished 
friendliness  and  kindness ;  for  which  I  would  once  more  most  heartily  thank 
Privy  Councilor  and  Chief  Librarian  Pertz,  and  Librarians  Dr.  Pinder  and  Dr. 
Friedlander. 

EHLANGEN,  Mh  April^  1854.  KARL  VON  RAUMEB. 


48  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES. 

THE  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES.  Being  the  fourth  volume  of  the  History 
of  Education.  By  KARL  VON  RAUMER.  Re-published  from  the  "Ameri- 
can Journal  of  Education"  edited  by  HENRY  BARNARD.  LL.D.  New 
York :  F.  C.  BROWNELL,  No.  346,  Broadway.  250  pages.  Price  $1.50. 

CONTENTS. 

PACK. 

IlJTRODCCTrON 3 

I.  THE  GERMAN  UNIVERSITIES.    From  the  German  of  Karl  von  Raumer 9 

I.  Historical 9 

1.  Introduction.     Universities  of  Salerno,  Bologna,  and  Paris 

2.  List  of  German  Universities,  with  date  of  their  foundation 10 

3.  The  German  Universities  in  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  centuries 11 

A.  Charters,  or  Letters  of  Foundation 11 

B.  The  Pope  and  the  Universities 12 

C.  The  Emperor  and  the  Universities 16 

D.  Organization  of  the  earliest  German  Universities 17 

a.  The  Four  Nations.    Four  Faculties.     Rector.    Chancellor.    Endowments.     18 

b.  The  Four  Faculties 20 

1.  Faculty  of  Arts 20 

2.  Faculty  of  Theology 21 

3.  Faculty  of  Canon  and  Civil  Law 24 

4.  Faculty  of  Medicine 26 

c.  Customs  and  Discipline 27 

I.  University  of  Wittenberg  and  its  relations  to  the  earlier  Universities 30 

5.  History  of  the  Customs  of  the  Universities  in  the  Seventeenth  Century 37 

A.  The  Deposition 42 

B.  Pennalism 52 

6.  History  of  the  Universities  in  the  Eighteenth  Century 52 

A.  Nationalism.     National  Societies 52 

B.  Students'  orders 56 

7.  History  of  the  Universities  in  the  Nineteenth  Century 58 

Introduction  ;  the  author's  academical  experience 59 

A.  Entrance  at  Halle,  1799;  a  preliminary  view 59 

B.  Gottingen;  Easter  1801  to  Easter  1803 59 

C.  Halle  ;  Easter  1803  to  Sept.  1805 68 

D.  Breslau;  1810  to  1817 76 

a.  Establishment  of  the  Jena  Burschenschuft,  July  18,  1816.     Wartburg  Festi- 

val, Oct.  18,  1817 80 

b.  Establishment  of  the  general  Burschenschaft,  in  1818 91 

E.  Breslau,  1817  to  1819 92 

a.  Sand 102 

b.  The  consequences  of  Sand's  crime.     Investigations.     Breaking  up  of  the 

societies.     Destruction  of  the  Burschenschaft 124 

F.  Halle,  18J9  to  1823 136 

Conclusion 153 

II.  APPENDIX 155 

I.  Bull  of  Pius  II.,  creating  University  of  Ingoidstadt 157 

II.  List  of  Lectures  in  the  'Faculty  of  Arts  in  1366 159 

III.  Bursaries 160 

IV.  The  ''  Comment "  of  the  National  Societies 161 

V.  Statutes 165 

A.  Constitution  of  the  General  German  Burschenschaft ]65 

B.  The  Jena  Burschenschaft 1C8 

VI.  The  Wartburg  Letters 183 

VII.  Bahrdt  with  the  iron  forehead 1H6 

VIII.  Substance  of  Tubingen  Statutes  for  organizin?  a  students'  committee 187 

IX.  Extract  from  an  Address  of  Prof.  Heyder,  at  Jena,  in  1607 188 

X.  Synonyms  of  "  Beanus  " l!)l 

XI.  Meyfurt's  "j9rctm««"  or  Student  Life  in  the  Sixteenth  Century 191 

XII.  Grant  of  Privileges  by  Leopold  1.  to  the  University  of  Halle J92 

XIII.  Works  referred  to ." 253 

XIV.  The  Universities  in  the  summer  of  1853 198 

III.  ACADEMICAL  TREATISES 201 

1 .  Lecture  system.     Dialogic  instruction 201 

2.  Examinations 206 

3.  Obligatory  lecture*.     Optional  attendance.    Lyceums.     Relations  of  the  philo- 

sophical faculty  and  their  lectures,  to  those  of  the  professional  studies 213 

4.  Personal  relations  of  the  professors  and  students 229 

5.  Small  and  large  universities.     Academies 2Ii6 

6.  University  instruction  in  elementary  natural  history 241 

7.  Student  songs 245 

Conclusion 049 

INDEX 255 


THE  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZL 

BY   CARL  VON  RAUMER,* 


JOHN  HENRY  PESTALOZZI  was  born  at  Zurich  on  the  12th  of  Jan- 
uary, 1746.  His  father  was  a  medical  practitioner;  his  mother, 
whose  maiden  name  was  Hotze,  was  a  native  of  Wadenschwyl  on 
the  Lake  of  Zurich,  and  first  cousin  to  the  Austrian  general  Hotze, 
who  fell  at  Schannis  in  1799. 

The  father  died  prematurely,  when  Pestalozzi  was  only  six  years 
old ;  from  this  time  forward,  therefore,  "  every  thing  was  wanting,  in 
the  influences  around  him,  which  a  manly  education  of  the  facul- 
ties so  urgently  requires  at  that  age."  "I  was  brought  up,"  he  re- 
lates, "  by  the  hand  of  the  best  of  mothers  like  a  spoilt  darling,  such 
that  you  will  not  easily  find  a  greater.  From  one  year  to  another  I 
never  left  the  domestic  hearth  ;  in  short,  all  the  essential  means  and 
inducements  to  the  development  of  manly  vigor,  manly  experience, 
manly  ways  of  thinking,  and  manly  exercises,  were  just  as  much 
wanting  to  me,  as,  from  the  peculiarity  and  weakness  of  my  temper- 
ament, I  especially  needed  them." 

This  peculiarity,  according  to  Pestalozzi's  own  statement,  was,  that 
with  the  most  sensitive  feelings  and  the  liveliest  imagination,  he  was 
deficient  in  the  power  of  sustained  attention,  in  reflection,  circum- 
spection, and  foresight. 

His  mother  devoted  herself  wholly  to  the  education  of  her  three 
children,  in  which  she  was  assisted  by  a  faithful  servant  girl  from  the 
country,  of  the  name  of  Babeli.  Pestalozzi's  father,  on  his  death- 
bed, sent  for  this  girl.  "  Babeli,"  said  he,  "  for  the  sake  of  God  and 
mercy,  do  not  leave  my  wife ;  when  I  am  dead,  she  will  be  forlorn, 
and  my  children  will  fall  into  strange  and  cruel  hands."  "  I  will  not 
leave  your  wife  when  you  die,''  replied  Babeli ;  "I  will  remain  with 
her  till  death,  if  she  has  need  of  me."  Her  words  pacified  the  dying 
father;  she  kept  her  promise,  and  remained  till  her  death  with  the 

*  In  this  article  we  follow  literally,  but  with  occasional  abridgments,  the  translation  of 
Prof.  J.  Tilleard,  originally  published  in  the  Educational  Expositor  for  1833-1,  and  afterward 
collected  in  a  volume  of  80  pages,  by  Longman,  Brown,  Green  and  Longmans,  London : 
1355. 

4 


50  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZ1. 

mother.  "Her  great  fidelity,"  Festalozzi  says,  "was  the  result  of 
her  strong,  simple,  and  pious  faith."  As  the  mother  was  in  very 
straitened  circumstances,  Babeli  economized  wherever  she  could ;  she 
even  restrained  the  children  when  they  wanted  to  go  into  the  street, 
or  to  any  place  where  they  had  no  business  to  go,  with  the  words, 
"  why  will  you  needlessly  wear  out  your  shoes  and  clothes  ?  See 
how  much  your  mother  denies  herself,  in  order  to  be  able  to  give 
you  an  education ;  how  for  weeks  and  months  together  she  never 
goes  out  any  where,  but  saves  every  farthing  for  your  schooling.'* 
Nevertheless,  the  mother  was  liberal  in  those  expenses  which  respect- 
ability requires,  nor  did  she  let  the  children  be  without  handsome 
Sunday  clothes.  These,  however,  they  were  allowed  to  wear  but 
seldom,  and  they  had  to  take  them  off  again  as  soon  as  they  came 
home. 

"I  saw  the  world,"  says  Pestalozzi,  "only  within  the  narrow  limits 
of  my  mother's  parlor,  and  within  the  equally  narrow  limits  of  my 
school-room ;  to  real  human  life  I  was  almost  as  great  a  stranger,  as 
if  I  did  not  live  in  the  world  in  which  I  dwelt." 

Pestalozzi's  grandfather  on  the  mother's  side  was  minister  at  Hongg, 
a  village  three  miles  from  Zurich.  With  him  Pestalozzi  spent  several 
months  every  year,  from  the  time  when  he  was  nine  years  old.  The 
old  man  conscientiously  cared  for  the  souls  of  his  flock,  and  thereby 
exercised  a  great  influence  upon  the  village  school ;  his  piety  made 
a  deep  and  lasting  impression  on  his  grandson. 

Of  his  early  school  days,  Pestalozzi  relates  the  following : — 

"  In  all  boys'  games,  I  was  the  most  clumsy  and  helpless  among 
all  my  school  fellows,  and  nevertheless,  in  a  certain  way,  I  always 
wanted  to  excel  the  others.  This  caused  some  of  them  very  fre- 
quently to  pass  their  jokes  upon  me.  One  of  them  gave  me  the 
nickname  '  Harry  Whimsical  of  Foolstown.'  Most  of  them,  however, 
liked  my  good  natured  and  obliging  disposition ;  though  they  knew 
my  general  clumsiness  and  awkwardness,  as  well  as  my  carelessness 
and  thoughtlessness  in  everything  that  did  not  particularly  interest 
me. 

"Accordingly,  although  one  of  the  best  pupils,  I  nevertheless 
committed,  with  incomprehensible  thoughtlessness,  faults  of  which 
not  even  the  worst  of  them  was  ever  guilty.  While  I  generally 
seized  with  quickness  and  accuracy  upon  the  essential  matter  of  the 
subjects  of  instruction,  I  was  generally  very  indifferent  and  thought- 
less as  to  the  forms  in  which  it  was  given.  At  the  same  time  that 
I  was  far  behind  my  fellow  scholars  in  some  parts  of  a  subject,  in 
other  parts  of  the  same  subject  I  often  surpassed  them  in  an  unusual 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  5} 

degree.  This  is  so  true,  that  once,  when  one  of  my  professors,  who 
had  a  very  good  knowledge  of  Greek,  but  not  the  least  eloquence  of 
style,  translated  and  published  some  orations  of  Demosthenes,  I  had 
the  boldness,  with  the  limited  school  rudiments  which  I  then  possessed, 
to  translate  one  of  these  orations  myself,  and  to  give  it  in,  at  the 
examination,  as  a  specimen  of  my  progress  in  this  branch  of  study. 
A  portion  of  this  translation  was  printed  in  the  Linden  Journal,  in 
connection  with  an  article  entitled  'Agis.'  Just  in  the  same  manner 
as  I  made  incomparably  more  progress  in  certain  parts  of  my  subjects 
of  instruction  than  in  others,  so  generally  it  was  of  far  more  import- 
ance to  me  to  be  sensibly  affected  by,  (I  dare  not  say  to  understand 
thoroughly,)  the  branches  of  knowledge  which  I  was  to  learn,  than 
to  exercise  myself  in  the  means  of  practicing  them.  At  the  same 
time;  the  wish  to  be  acquainted  with  some  branches  of  knowledge 
that  took  hold  on  my  heart  and  my  imagination,  even  though  I  neg- 
lected the  means  of  acquiring  them,  was  nevertheless  enthusiastically 
alive  within  me  ;  and  unfortunately,  the  tone  of  public  instruction  in 
iny  native  town  at  this  period  was  in  a  high  degree  calculated  to  fos- 
ter this  visionary  fancy  of  taking  an  active  interest  in,  and  believing 
one's  self  capable  of,  the  practice  of  things  in  which  one  had  by  no 
means  had  sufficient  exercise,  and  this  fancy  was  very  prevalent 
among  the  youth  of  my  native  town  generally."  What  a  foreshad- 
owing is  Pestalozzi's  childhood  of  the  whole  of  his  subsequent  career  ! 
Among  Pestalozzi's  teachers,  there  were  three  who  exercised  an  in- 
fluence upon  him  in  his  youth,  —  Bodmer,  Breitinger,  and  Steinbru- 
chel.  Bodmer  was  Professor  of  History  from  1725  to  1775  ;  he  is 
known  by  his  literary  controversies  with  Gottsched  and  Lessing,  his 
edition  of  the  Minniesingers,  and  his  epic  poem  upon  the  Relugg. 
Breitinger,  Professor  of  Greek  and  Hebrew  from  1731  to  1776,  edi- 
ted the  Septuagint.  Steinbriichel  is  described  as  a  witty  and  learned 
man,  but  very  much  inclined  to  infidel  "  illumination."  "  Indepen- 
dence, freedom,  beusfioence,  self-sacrifice,  and  patriotism,  were  the 
watchwords  of  our  public  education,"  says  Pestalozzi.  "But  the 
means  of  attaining  all  this  which  was  particularly  commended  to  us 
—  was  left  without  solid  and  sufficient  trainin 


of  the  practical  ability  which  is  its   essential  condition.     We  were 
taught,  in  a  visionary  manner,  to  seek  for  independence  OJjj 


without  being  made   to  feel  strongly  what 
to  the  security  both  of  our  inward  and  of 


our  outward  domestic  and  civil  independence.  The  tone  of  the  in- 
struction which  we  received,  led  us,  with  much  vivacity  and  many 
attractive  representations,  to  be  so  short-sighted  and  inconsiderate  as 


52  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

to  set  little  value  upon,  and  almost  to  despise,  the  external  means  of 
wealth,  honor,  and  consideration.  This  was  carried  to  such  a  length, 
that  we  imagined,  while  we  were  yet  in  the  condition  of  boys,  that, 
by  a  superficial  school  acquaintance  with  the  great  civil  life  of  Greece 
and  Rome,  we  could  eminently  prepare  ourselves  for  the  little  civil 
life  in  one  of  the  Swiss  cantons." 

Pestalozzi  further  relates,  that  the  appearance  of  the  writings  of 
Rousseau  was  a  great  mj}ajns_j>fjte^|^  which 

the  noble  flight  of  true  and  patriotic  sentiment  had  led  the  more  dis- 
tinguished of  the  young  Swiss.  "They  had  run,"  he  says,  "into^ne- 
sid£d,  r_asjh,  and  confused  notions,  into  which  Voltaire's  seductive 
infidelity,  being  opposed  to  the  pure  holiness  of  religion,  and  to  its 
simplicity  and  innocence,  had  helped  to  lead  them.  Out  of  all  this," 
he  tells  us,  "  a  ne-wJ^ndaiicyLJ!iuis_-pixiduced,  which  was  totally_incojQ- 

Sistent  wjfh  tJ^rfta.]_yp1fajyi  nf\  onr  native  f.rmaa;  constituted  as  it  Was 

according  to  the  old-fashioned  style  of  the  imperial  free  cities,  which 
1  was  neither  calculated  to  preserve  what  was  good  in  the  old  institu- 
^tions,  nor  to  introduce  any  that  were  substantially  better." 

At  this  time,  Pestalozzi's  contemporary,  Lavater,  founded  a  league 
v  which  Pestalozzi  joined,  being  then  a  lad  of  fifteen^  The  young  men 

who  formed  this  league,  with  Lavater  at  their  head,  brought  a  public 
charge  of  jinj_usji£e  against  Grebel,  the  governor  of  the  canton,  im- 
peached the  ch  aracterjof_  Bmnn  er,  the  mayor  of  Zurich,  and  declared 
war  against  uji^^iilh^uiUJlisiej^j}^^ 

"  The  moment  Rousseau's  Etnile  appeared,"  says  Pestalozzi,  "  my 
visionary  and  highly  speculative  mind  was  enthusiastically  seized  by 
this  visionary  and  highly  speculative  book.  I  compared  the  educa- 
tion which  I  enjoyed  in  the  corner  of  my  mother's  parlor,  and  also  in 
the  school  which  I  frequented,  with  what  Rousseau  demanded  for  the 
education  of  his  Emilus.  The  home  as  well  as  the  public  education 
of  the  whole  world,  and  of  all  ranks  of  society,  appeared  to  me  alto- 
gether as  a  crippled  thing,  which  was  to  find  a  universal  remedy  for 
"""^  /¥-  its  present  pitiful  condition  in  Rousseau's  lofty  ideas. 

'k  The  ideal  system  of  liberty,  also,  to  which  Rousseau  imparted 
fresh  animation,  increased  in  me  the  visionary  desire  for  a  more  ex- 
tended sphere  of  activity,  in  which  I  might  promote  the  welfare  and 
happiness  of  the  people.  Juvenile  ideas  as  to  what  it  was  necessary 
and  possible  to  do  in  this  respect  in  my  native  town,  induced  me  to 
abandon  the  clerical  profession,  to  which  I  had  formerly  leaned,  and 
for  which  I  had  been  destined,  and  caused  the  thought  to  spring  up 
within  me,  that  it  might  be  possible,  by  the  study  of  the  law,  to  find 
;a  career  that  would  be  likely  to  procure  for  me,  sooner  or  later,  the 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  53 

opportunity  and  means  of  exercising  an  active  influence  on  tlie  civil 
condition  of  my  native  town,  and  even  of  my  native  land." 

There  was  at  this  time  a  great  controversy  in  the  canton  of  Zurich, 
particularly  between  the  town  and  the  country.     Pestalozzi  had  already 
when  living  with   his  grandfather,  the  village  pastor,  won 

and  might  early  have 
heard  the  complaint  of  the  country  clergy,  omne  malum  ex  urbe,  — 
"  all  harm  comes  from  the  town."  A  fierce  hatred  toward  the  aris- 
tocracy who  oppressed  the  country  people  was  kindled  in  his  young 
heart,  and  eyejijn_ojii--ag^  it  was  not  altogether  extinguished.  This 
warmth  of  anger  coexisted  in  him  with  great  warmth  of  love  for  the 
people  ;  Gothe's  saying  — 

"  Youth's  wings  should  trim  themselves  for  flight 

Ere  youthful  strength  be  gone, 
Throi  hatjM)£wroji£  anj  Jo\rej^f  jjgjit 
To  bear  him  bravely  on  —  " 

^characterizes  not  only  the  v_oung.  Pestalozzi,  but  also  the  old-man  ;  it 
Lli^^ 


He  was  seconded  at  this  time  by  a  friend  of  the  name  of  Blunt- 
schli,  but  a  pulmonary  complaint  laid  this  young  man  upon  his  death- 
bed. He  sent  for  Pestalozzi,  and  said  to  him,  "  I  die,  and  when  you 
are  left  to  yourself,  you  must  not  plunge  into  any  career  which  from 
your  good  natured  and  confiding  disposition,  might  become  danger- 
ous to  you.  Seek  for  a  otmgtjji^ji^nl_-c^:reer  ;  and  unless  you  have 
at  your  side  a  man  who  will  faithfully  assist  you  with  a  calm,  dispas- 
sionate knowledge  of  men  and  things,  by  no  means  embark  in  any 
extensive  undertaking  whose  failure  would  in  any  way  be  perilous  to 
you."  An  ^opinion  of.  Pestaloy./iy  ^chaiaf.ter  which  was  strikingly 
confirmed  by  almost  every  subsequent  event  of  his  life. 

Soon  after  his  friend's  death,  Pestalozzi  himself  became  danger- 
ously ill,  probably  in  consequence  of  his  overstrained  exertion  in  the 
pursuit  of  his  JegaJjyiilJiisicj^^  His  physicians  advised  him. 

to  give  up  scientific  pursuits  for  a  time,  and  to  recreate  Jiiins.elf  in  the 
country.  This  advice,  which  was  strengthened  by  Rousseau's  anti- 
scientific  diatribes,  Pestalozzi  fol|o\ved_^too  faithfully.  lie  renounced 
the  study  of  books,  !)Uj^tJns_jn^misciMpJs,  went  to  his  maternal  rela- 
tion, Dr.  Ilotze  at  Richterswyl,  and  from  thence  to  Kirchberg,  in  the 
canton  of  Bern,  to  Tschiffeli,  a  farmer  of  considerable  reputation. 
From  him  Pestalozzi  sought  advice  as  to  how  he  might  best  realize 
his  plans  for  the  country  people.  "I  had  come  to  him,"  says  Pestal- 
ozzi, "  a  political  visionary,  though  with  many  profound  and  correct 
attainments,  views,  and  prospects  in  political  matters  ;  and  I  went 


54  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

away  from  him  just  as  great  an  agricultural  visionary,  though  with 
many  enlarged  and  correct  ideas  and  intentions  in  regard  to  agricul- 
ture. My  stay  with  him  only  had  this  effect — that  the  gigantic 
views  in  relation  to  my  exertions  were  awakened  within  me  afresh  by 
his  agricultural  plans,  which,  though  difficult  of  execution,  and  in 
part  impracticable,  were  bold  and  extensive ;  and  that,  at  the  same 
time,  they  caused  me,  in  my  thoughtlessness  as  to  the  means  of  car- 
rying them  out,  to  fall  into  a  callousness,  the  consequences  of  which 
contributed  in  a  decisive  mariner  to  the  pecuniary  embarrassment  into 
which  I  was  plunged  in  the  very  first  years  of  my  rural  life." 

Tschiffeli's  plantations  of  madder  were  exciting  great  attention  at 
that  time,  and  induced  Pestalozzi  to  make  a  similar  experiment.  He 
learnt  that  near  the  village  of  Birr  there  was  a  large  tract  of  barren 
chalky  heath-land  to  be  sold,  which  was  only  used  for  a  sheep-walk. 
He  joined  a  rich  mercantile  firm  in  Zurich,  and  bought  about  100 
acres  of  this  land,  at  the  nominal  price  of  ten  florins.  A  builder 
erected  for  him,  on  the  land  he  had  purchased,  a  dwelling  house  in 
the  Italian. style;  Pestalozzi  himself  calls  this  an  in|udieious  and  im- 
prudent step.  To  the  whole  estate  he  gave  the  name  of  Neuhof. 

Among  the  friends  of  Pestalozzi's  youth,  was  Schulthess,  (the  son 
of  a  wealthy  merchant  in  Zurich,)  for  whose  beauti|uL  sister,  Anna 
Schulthess,  Pestalozzi  entertained  an  affection.  A  letter  which  he 
wrote  to  the  beautiful  maiden,  gives  us  a  profound  insight  into  the 
workings  of  his  heart,  and  even  into  his  future  life.  In  this  letter  he 
lays  before  her  his  hop£S  and  resolutions,  and  also,  with  the  utmost 
Qari4oj*  and  with  great  self-knowledge,  his  faults.  He  thus  writes  : — 

"  MY    DEAR,  MY    ONLY    FRIEND. 

*'  Our  whole  future  life,  our  whole  happiness,  our  duties  toward  our 
country  and  our  posterity,  and  the  security  of  virtue,  call  upon  us  to 
follow  the  only  correct  guide  in  our  actions — Truth.  I  will,  with  all 
candor,  made  known  to  you  the  serious  reflection  I  have  had  in  these 
solemn  days  upon  the  relation  subsisting  between  us ;  I  am  happy 
that  I  know  before-hand,  that  my  friend  will  find  more  true  love  in 
the  calm  truth  of  this  contemplation,  which  so  intimately  concerns 
our  happiness,  than  in  the  ardor  of  pleasant,  but  often  not  too  wise, 
outpourings  of  a  feeling  heart,  which  I  now  with  difficulty  restrain. 
"  Dear  friend,  first  of  all  I  must  tell  you  that  in  future  I  shall  but 
seldom  dare  to  approach  you.  I  have  already  come  too  frequently 
and  too  imprudently  to  your  brother's  house;  I  see  that  it  becomes 
my  duty  to  limit  my  visits  to  you ;  I  have  not  the  slightest  ability  to 
conceal  my  feelings.  My  sole  art  in  this  respect  consists  in  fleeing 
from  those  who  observe  them  ;  I  should  not  be  able  to  be  in  company 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  55 

with  you  for  even  half  an  evening,  without  its  being  possible  for  a 
moderately  acute  observer  to  perceive  that  I  was  in  a  disturbed  state 
of  mind.  We  know  each  other  sufficiently,  dear,  to  be  able  to  rely 
upon  mutual  straightforward  honesty  and  sincerity.  I  propose  to  you 
a  correspondence  in  which  we  shall  make  our  undisguised  thoughts 
known  to  each  other  with  all  the  freedom  of  oral  conversation.  Yes, 
I  will  open  myself  fully  and  freely  to  you ;  I  will  even  now  with  the 
greatest  candor,  let  you  look  as  deep  into  my  heart  as  I  am  myself 
able  to  penetrate ;  I  will  show  you  my  views  in  the  light  of  my  pres- 
ent and  future  condition,  as  clearly  as  I  see  them  myself. 

"  Dearest  Schulthess,  those  of  my  faults  which  appear  to  me  the 
most  important  in  relation  to  the  situation  in  which  I  may  be  placed 
in  after-life,  are  improvidence,  incautiousness,  and  a  want  of  presence 
of  mind  to  meet  unexpected  changes  in  my  future  prospects,  when- 
ever they  may  occur.  I  know  not  how  far  they  may  be  diminished 
by  my  efforts  to  counteract  them,  by  calm  judgment  and  experience. 
At  present,  I  have  them  still  in  such  a  degree,  that  I  dare  not  conceal 
them  from  the  maiden  whom  I  love ;  they  are  faults,  my  dear,  which 
deserve  your  fullest  consideration.  I  have  other  faults,  arising  from 
my  irritability  and  sensitiveness,  which  oftentimes  will  not  submit  to 
my  judgment.  I  very  frequently  allow  myself  to  run  into  excesses 
in  praising  and  blaming,  in  my  likings  and  dislikings ;  I  cleave  so 
strongly  to  many  things  which  I  possess,  that  the  force  with  which  I 
feel  myself  bound  to  them  often  exceeds  the  limits  which  reason 
assigns  ;  whenever  my  country  or  my  friend  is  unhappy,  I  am  myself 
unhappy.  Direct  your  whole  attention  to  this  weakness ;  there  will 
be  times  when  the  cheerfulness  and  tranquillity  of  my  soul  will  suffer 
under  it.  If  even  it,  does  not  hinder  me  in  the  discharge  of  my 
duties,  yet  I  shall  scarcely  ever  be  great  enough  to  fulfill  them,  in 
such  adverse  circumstances,  with  the  cheerfulness  and  tranquillity  of  a 
wise  man,  who  is  ever  true  to  himself.  Of  my  great,  and  indeed 
very  reprehensible  negligence  in  all  matters  of  etiquette,  and  gene- 
rally in  all  matters  which  are  not  in  themselves  of  importance,  I  need 
not  speak  ;  any  one  may  see  them  at  first  sight  of  me.  I  also  owe 
you  the  open  confession,  my  dear,  that  I  shall  always  consider 
my  duties  toward  my  beloved  partner  subordinate  to  my  duties 
toward  my  country ;  and  that,  although  I  shall  be  the  tenderest 
husband,  nevertheless  I  hold  it  to  be  my  duty  to  be  inexorable  to 
the  tears  of  my  wife,  if  she  should  ever  attempt  to  restrain  me  by 
them  from  the  direct  performance  of  my  duties  as  a  citizen,  whatever 
this  might  lead  to.  My  wife  shall  be  the  confident  of  my  heart,  the 
partner  of  all  my  most  secret  counsels.  A  great  and  honest  simplicity 


56  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

shall  reign  in  my  house.  And  one  thing  more.  My  life  will  not 
pass  without  important  and  very  critical  undertakings.  I  shall  not 
forget  the  precepts  of  Menalk,  and  my  first  resolutions  to  devote  my- 
self wholly  to  my  country  ;  I  shall  never  from  fear  of  man,  refrain 
from  speaking,  when  I  see  that  the  good  of  my  country  calls  upon 
me  to  speak  :  my  whole  heart  is  my  country's  ;  I  will  risk  all  to  alle- 
viate the  need  and  misery  of  my  fellow  countrymen.  What  conse- 
quences may  the  undertakings  to  which  I  feel  myself  urged  on,  draw 
after  them  ;  how  unequal  to  them  am  I  ;  and  how  imperative  is  my 
duty  to  show  you  the  possibility  of  the  great  dangers  which  they 
may  bring  upon  me  ! 

"My  dear,  my  beloved  friend,  I  have  now  spoken  candidly  of  my 
character  and  my  aspirations.  Reflect  upon  every  thing.  If  the 
traits  which  it  was  my  duty  to  mention,  diminish  your  respect  for  me, 
you  will  still  esteem  my  sincerity,  and  you  will  not  think  less  highly 
of  me,  that  I  did  not  take  advantage  of  your  want  of  acquaintance 
with  my  character,  for  the  attainment  of  my  inmost  wishes.  Decide 
now  whether  you  can  give  your  heart  to  a  man  with  these  faults  and 
in  such  a  condition,  and  be  happy. 

"  My  dear  friend,  I  love  you  so  truly  from  my  heart,  and  with  such 
fervor,  that  this  step  has  cost  me  much  ;  I  fear  to  lose  you,  dear,  when 
you  see  me  as  I  am  ;  I  had  often  determined  to  be  silent;  at  last  I 
have  conquered  myself.  My  conscience  called  loudly  to  me,  that  I 
should  be  a  seducer  and  not  a  lover,  if  I  were  to  hide  from  my  be- 
loved a  trait  of  my  heart,  or  a  circumstance,  which  might  one  day 
disgust  her  and  render  her  unhappy  ;  I  now  rejoice  at  what  I  have 
done.  If  the  circumstances  into  which  duty  and  country  shall  call 
me,  set  a  limit  to  my  efforts  and  my  hopes,  still  I  shall  not  have  been 
base-minded,  not  vicious  ;  I  have  not  sought  to  please  you  in  a  mask, 
\  *  —  I  have  not  deceived  you  with  chimerical  hopes  of  a  happiness  that 
*  is  not  to  be  looked  for  ;  I  have  concealed  from  you  no  clanger  and 

no  sorrow  of  the  future  ;  I  have  nothing  to  reproach  myself  with." 

It  was  in  the  year  1767  that  Pestalozzi  removed  to  Neuhof.  On 
the  24th  of  January,  1769,  two  years  later,  he  married  Anna  Schul- 
thess,  being  then  only  tw^n^yj^ir^ajsjold.  It  was  not  long  before 
troubles  came  upon  the  young  married  couple.  The  madder  planta- 
tion did  not  prosper;  an  assistant  whom  Pestalozzi  had  engaged, 

j  the  Zurich  firm,  which  had 


advanced  money  to  Pestalozzi,  sent  two  competent  judges  to  examine 
into  the  condition  of  the  estate  —  both  of  them  reported  so  unfavorably 
upon  it,  especially  upon  the  buildings,  that  the  firm  preferred  taking 
back  their  capital  with  loss,  to  trusting  it  any  longer  in  Pestalozzi's 


LIFE  AN  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  5*7 


Lands.     "  The  c^usfi^Qfjheji^ihii^  of  my  undertaking,"  says  he,  "  lay 

and  in  my  pronounced  incapacity 


for   every  kind    o£   undertaking   which   requires   eminent 
ability." 

Notwithstanding  the  great  distress  into  which  he  fell,  he  resolved 
not  only  to  go  on  with  farming,  but  to  combine  with  it  a  school  for 
poor  children.  "  I  wished,"  says  he,  "  to  make  my  estate  a  centre  for 
wi^^ediic^tiojial  and  agricultural  labors.  In  spite  of  all  difficulties,  I 
wanted,  like  a  visionary,  to  reach  the  highest  point  in  every  respect, 
at  the  same  time  that  I  Iacj^e4jih^j^  from 

which  alone  can  proceed  a  proper  attention  to  the  first  and  humblest 
beginnings  and  preparatory  steps  to  the  great  things  which  I  sought 
after.  So  great,  so  unspeakably  great,  in  consequence  of  the  peculiarity 
of  my  mind,  was  the  contrast  between  what  I  wished  to  do  and  what 
I  did  and  was  able  to  do,  which  arose  from  the  disproportion  between 
my  good  natured  zeal,  on  the  one  side,  and  my  mental  impotency  and 
unskillful  ness  in  the  affairs  of  life  on  the  other." 

By  mental  impotency,  we  must  understand  only  a  want  of  school- 
ing or  intellectual  disciplining  of  the  mind,  for  just  at  this  time  Pes- 
talozzi's  literary  talent  made  itself  known.  He  came  forward  with  a 
plan  for  the  establishment  of  the  Poor  School.  His  views  and  prin- 
ciples met  with  so  much  approbation  in  an  economical  point  of  veiw, 
in  spite  of  the  want  of  confidence,  in  his  practical  ability,  that  he 
received  offers  of  assistance  from  Zurich,  Bern,  and  Basel,  and  many 
poor  children  were  sent  to  him. 

Thus  began  the  Neuhof  Poor  School  in  the  year  1775  ;  it  had 
soon  fifty  pupils.  In  the  summer,  the  children  were  to  be  chiefly  em- 
ployed in  field-work,  —  in  winter,  with  spinning  and  other  handicrafts. 
During  the  time  that  they  were  engaged  in  the  handicrafts,  Pesta- 
lozzi  gave  them  instruction  ;  exercises  in  speaking  were  predominant. 

But  no  long  time  elapsed  before  the  establishment  declined  ;  to 
which  result  many  things  contributed.  The  children,  who  were  to 
earn  their  support  by  their  work,  were,  although  beggar  children, 
spoilt  and  full  of  demands.  Their  parents,  who  every  Sunday  be- 
sieged Neuhof,  confirmed  them  in  this,  and  also  ran  off  with  them  as 
soon  as  they  had  got  new  clothes.  None  of  the  authorities  protected 
Pestalozzi  against  this  misconduct,  from  which  the  forming  suffered  a 
great  deal.  "  But  these  difficulties,"  says  Pestalozzi,  "  might  gradually 
have  been  more  or  less  overcome,  if  I  had  not  sought  to  carry  out 
my  experiment  on  a  scale  that  was  quite  disproportioned  to  my 
strength,  and  had  not,  with  almost  incredible  thoughtlessness,  wanted 
to  convert  it,  in  the  very  beginning,  into  an  undertaking  which  pre- 


58  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

supposed  a  thorough  knowledge  of  manufactures,  men,  and  business, 
in  which  I  was  deficient  in  the  same  proportion  as  they  were  rendered 
necessary  to  me  by  the  direction  which  I  now  gave  my  undertaking. 
I,  who  so  much  disapproved  of  the  hurrying  to  the  higher  stages  of 
instruction,  before  a  thorough  foundation  had  been  laid  in  the  elemen- 
tary steps  of  the  lower  stages,  and  looked  upon  it  as  the  fundamental 
error  in  the  education  of  the  day,  and  who  also  believed  that  I  was 
myself  endeavoring  with  all  my  might  to  counteract  it  in  my  plan  of 
education,  allowed  myself  to  be  carried  away  by  illusions  of  the  greater 
remunerativeness  of  the  higher  branches  of  industry,  without  knowing 
even  remotely  either  them  or  the  means  of  learning  and  introducing 
them,  and  to  commit  the  very  faults  in  teaching  my  school  children 
spinning  and  weaving  which,  as  I  have  just  said,  I  so  strongly  repro- 
bated and  denounced  in  the  whole  of  my  views  on  education,  and 
which  I  considered  dangerous  to  the  domestic  happiness  of  all  classes. 
I  wanted  to  have  the  finest  thread  spun,  before  my  children  had 
gained  any  steadiness  or  sureness  of  hand  in  spinning  even  the 
coarser  kinds,  and,  in  like  manner  to,  make  muslin  fabrics,  before  my 
weavers  had  acquired  sufficient  steadiness  and  readiness  in  the  weaving 
of  common  cotton  goods.  Practiced  and  skillful  manufacturers  ruin 
themselves  by  such  preposterous  conduct, — how  much  more  certain  to 
be  ruined  by  such  conduct  was  I,  who  was  so -blind  in  the  discernment 
of  what  was  necessary  to  success,  that  I  must  distinctly  say,  that  who- 
ever took  but  a  thread  of  mine  into  his  hand  was  at  once  in  a  posi- 
tion to  cause  half  of  its  value  to  vanish  for  me !  Before  I  was  aware 
of  it,  too,  I  was  deeply  involved  in  debt,  and  the  greater  part  of  my 
dear  wife's  property  and  expectations  had  in  an  instant,  as  it  were, 
gone  up  in  smoke.  Our  misfortune  was  decided.  I  was  now  poor. 
The  extent  and  rapidity  of  my  misfortune  was  owing  to  this  among 
other  causes — that,  in  this  undertaking,  as  in  the  first,  I  readily,  very 
readily,  received  an  unquestioning  confidence.  My  plan  soon  met 
with  a  degree  of  confidence  which  an  attentive  consideration  of  my 
former  conduct  would  have  shown  that  which  I  did  not  merit  in  the 
present  undertaking.  After  all  the  experience  they  had  had  of  my 
errors  in  this  respect,  people  still  did  not  think  the  extent  of  my  inca- 
pacity for  everything  practical  was  so  great  as  it  really  was.  I  even 
yet  enjoyed  for  a  while,  to  all  appearance,  an  extensive  confidence. 
But  when  my  experiment  went  rapidly  to  wreck,  as  it  necessarily  did, 
this  feeling  changed,  in  my  neighborhood,  into  just  as  inconsiderate 
a  degree  of  the  contrary,  into  a  totally  blind  abandonment  of  even 
the  last  shadow  of  respect  for  my  endeavors,  and  of  belief  in  my 
fitness  for  the  accomplishment  of  any  part  of  them.  It  is  the  course 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  59 

of  the  world,  and  it  happened  to  me  as  it  happens  to  every  one  who 
thus  becomes  poor  through  his  own  fault.  Such  a  man  generally 
loses,  together  with  his  money,  the  belief  and  the  confidence  in  what 
he  really  is  and  is  able  to  do.  The  belief  in  the  qualifications  which 
I  really  had  for  attaining  my  objects  was  now  lost,  along  with  the 
belief  in  those  which,  erring  in  my  self-deception,  I  gave  myself  credit 
for,  but  which  I  really  had  not." 

Thus  it  happened,  that  in  the  year  1780,  Pestalozzi  was  obliged  to 
break  up  the  establishment  at  Neuhof,  after  it  had  been  five  years  in 
operation.  His  situation  was  frightful.  Frequently  in  his  only  too 
elegant  country  house  he  wanted  money,  bread,  fuel,  in  order  to  pro- 
tect himself  against  hunger  and  cold.  His  faithful  wife,  who  had 
pledged  nearly  the  whole  of  her  property  for  him,  fell  into  a  severe 
and  tedious  illness.  "My  friends,"  relates  Pestalozzi,  "now  only 
loved  rne  without  hope ;  in  the  whole  circuit  of  the  surrounding  dis- 
trict it  was  every  where  said  that  I  was  a  lost  man,  that  nothing  more 
could  be  done  for  me." 

The  breaking  up  of  the  establishment  at  Neuhof  was  a  fortunate 
thing  for  Pestalozzi — and  for  the  world.  He  was  no  longer  to  fritter 
away  his  strength  in  efforts  to  which  he  was  not  equal.  And,  never- 
theless, his  severe  mental  and  physical  labor  was  not  to  have  been  in 
vain,  but  was  to  bear  precious  fruits.  As  the  first  of  these  fruits, 
there  appeared  in  1*780  a  paper  of  his,  brief  but  full  of  meaning,  in 
Iselin's  Ephemerides,  under  the  title,  The  Evening  Hour  of  a  Hermit. 
It  contains  a  series  of  aphorisms,  which  nevertheless  are  cast  in  one 
mould,  and  stand  among  one  another  in  the  closest  connection. 
Fruits  of  the  past  years  of  Pestalozzi's  life,  they  are  at  the  same 
time  seeds  of  the  following  years,  programme  and  key  to  his  educa- 
tional labors.  "Iselin's  Ephemerides,"  he  writes  in  1801,  alluding  to 
this  Evening  Hour,  "  bear  witness,  that  the  dream  of  my  wishes  is  not 
more  comprehensive  now,  than  it  was  when  at  that  time  I  sought  to 
icalize  it. 

It  is  scarcely  possible  to  make  a  selection  from  these  concise  and 
thought-teeming  aphorisms,  the  more  so  because  they  form,  as  I  have 
said,  a  beautiful  and  ingenious  whole,  which  'suffers  in  the  selection. 
Nevertheless,  I  will  run  the  risk  of  selecting-  some  of  the  principal 
thoughts. 

The  paper  begins  with  melancholy  seriousness.  "Pastors  and 
teachers  of  the  nations,  know  you  man ;  is  it  with  you  a  matter  of 
conscience  to  understand  his  nature  and  destiny? 

"All  mankind  are  in  their  nature  alike,  they  have  but  one  path  to 
contentment.  The  natural  faculties  of  each  one  are  to  be  perfected 


60  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

into  pure  human  wisdom.  This  general  education  of  man  must  serve 
as  the  foundation  to  every  education  of  a  particular  rank. 

"  The  faculties  grow  by  exercise. 

"  The  intellectual  powers  of  children  must  not  be  urged  on  to  re- 
mote distances  before  they  have  acquired  strength  by  exercise  in 
things  near  them. 

"  The  circle  of  knowledge  commences  close  around  a  man,  and  from 
thence  stretches  out  concentrically. 

"  Real  knowledge  must  take  precedence  of  word-teaching  and  mere 
talk. 

"All  human  wisdom  is  based  upon  the  strength  of  a  good  heart, 
obedient  to  truth.  Knowledge  and  ambition  must  be  subordinated 
to  inward  peace  and  calm  enjoyment. 

"As  the  education  for  the  closest  relations  precedes  the  education 
for  more  remote  ones,  so  must  education  in  the  duties  of  members 
of  families  precede  education  in  the  duties  of  citizens.  But  nearer 
than  father  or  mother  is  God,  '  the  closest  relation  of  mankind  is 
their  relation  to  Him.' 

"Faith  in  God  is  'the  confiding,  childlike  feeling  of  mankind  to- 
ward the  paternal  mind  of  the  Supreme  Being.'  This  faith  is  not  the 
result  and  consequence  of  cultivated  wisdom,  but  is  purely  an  instinct 
of  simplicity ;  a  childlike  and  obedient  mind  is  not  the  consequence 
of  a  finished  education,  but  the  early  and  first  foundation  of  human 
culture.  Out  of  the  faith  in  God  springs  the  hope  of  eternal  life. 
*  Children  of  God  are  immortal.' 

"  Belief  in  God  sanctifies  and  strengthens  the  tie  between  parents 
and  children,  between  subjects  and  rulers ;  unbelief  loosens  all  ties, 
annihilates  all  blessings. 

"  Sin  is  the  source  and  consequence  of  unbelief,  it  is  acting  con- 
trary to  the  inward  witness  of  right  and  wrong,  the  loss  of  the  child- 
like mind  toward  God. 

"  Freedom  is  based  upon  justice,  justice  upon  love,  therefore  free- 
dom also  is  based  upon  love. 

"Justice  in  families,^ the  purest,  most  productive  of  blessings,  has 
love  for  its  source. 

"  Pure  childlike  feeling  is  the  true  source  of  the  freedom  that  is 
based  upon  justice,  and  pure  paternal  feeling  is  the  source  of  all 
power  of  governing,  that  is  noble  enough  to  do  justice  and  to  love 
freedom.  And  the  source  of  justice  and  of  all  worldly  blessings,  the 
source  of  the  love  and  brotherly  feeling  of  mankind  toward  one  an- 
other, this  is  based  upon  the  great  thought  of  religion,  that  we  are 
children  of  God,  and  that  the  belief  in  this  truth  is  the  sure  ground 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  gj 

of  all  worldly  blessings.  In  this  great  thought  of  religion  lies  ever 
the  spirit  of  all  true  state  policy  that  seeks  only  the  blessing  of  the 
people,  for  all  inward  power  of  morality,  enlightenment  and  worldly 
wisdom,  is  based  upon  this  ground  of  the  belief  of  mankind  in  God ; 
and  ungodliness,  misapprehension  of  the  relation  of  mankind  as  chil- 
dren to  the  Supreme  Being,  is  the  source  which  dissolves  all  the 
power  with  which  morals,  enlightenment,  and  wisdom,  are  capable 
of  blessing  mankind.  Therefore  the  loss  of  this  childlike  feeling  of 
mankind  toward  God  is  the  greatest  misfortune  of  the  world,  as  it 
renders  impossible  all  paternal  education  on  the  part  of  God,  and  the 
restoration  of  this  lost  childlike  feeling  is  the  redemption  of  the  lost 
children  of  God  on  earth. 

*  .  "  The  Son  of  God,  who  with  suffering  and  death  has  restored  to 
mankind  the  universally  lost  feeling  of  filial  love  toward  God,  is  the  Re- 
deemer of  the  world,  He  is  the  sacrificed  Priest  of  the  Lord,  He  is 
Mediator  between  God  and  sinful  mankind.  His  doctrine  is  pure  jus- 
tice, educative  national  philosophy ;  it  is  the  revelation  of  God  the 
Father  to  the  lost  race  of  his  children." 

Much  might  be  said  upon  these  aphorisms ;  each  is  a  text  for  a 
discourse ;  indeed,  Pestalozzi's  life  is  a  paraphrase  in  facts  of  these 
texts.  We  must  accuse  human  weakness,  if  the  realization  of  his 
great  anticipations  henceforward  also  turns  out  but  miserably,  nay, 
only  too  often  stands  in  the  most  glaring  contradiction  with  them. 
The  plan  of  an  inventive  builder,  however,  retains  its  value,  if  even  the 
builder  himself  lack  the  skill  to  carry  out  the  building  according  to 
the  plan. 

Rousseau's  Entile  appeared  eighteen  years  before  Pestalozzi's  Eve- 
ning Hour ;  in  what  relation  does  Rousseau  stand  to  Pestalozzi  ?  In 
particular  points  they  frequently  agree.  Like  Pestalozzi,  Rousseau 
requires  real  knowledge  and  trained  skill  in  the  business  of  life,  not 
an  empty  display  of  words,  without  an  insight  into  the  things  them- 
selves, and  a  ready  power  of  acting.  Like  Pestalozzi,  Rousseau  also 
ridicules  the  plan  of  giving  children  a  discursive  knowledge  about 
things  remote,  and  leaving  them  in  ignorance  of  the  things  in  their 
immediate  vicinity  ;  he  requires,  like  Pestalozzi,  that  they  should  first 
be  at  home  in  this  vicinity. 

In  this  manner  many  other  things  might  be  pointed  out  in  which 
both  men  agree,  arising  principally  from  their  common  aversion  to 
a  baseless,  dead  talkativeness,  without  any  real  intelligence,  activity 
of  mind,  or  readiness  of  action.  But  when  viewed  more  closely, 
how  immensely  different  are  the  two  men  in  all  that  is  most  essential. 

Rousseau  will  not  have  God  named  before  children ;  he  is  of  opinion 


62  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

that  long  physical  and  metaphysical  study  is  necessary  to  enable  us 
to  think  of  God.  With  Pestalozzi,  God  is  the  nearest,  the  most  inti- 
mate being  to  man,  the  Alpha  and  Omega  of  his  whole  life.  Rous- 
seau's God  is  no  paternal  God  of  love,  his  Emile  no  child  of  God. 
The  man  who  put  his  children  into  a  foundling  hospital,  knew  nothing 
of  paternal  and  filial  love ;  still  less  of  rulers  as  the  fathers  of  the 
nations,  and  of  the  childlike  obedience  of  subjects ;  his  ideal  was  a 
cold,  heartless  freedom,  which  was  not  based  upon  love,  but  was  de- 
fensive, isolating,  and  altogether  selfish. 

While,  therefore,  according  to  Pestalozzi,  the  belief  in  God  pene- 
trates, strengthens,  attunes,  sanctifies  all  the  relations  of  men ;  while 
the  relations  between  ruler  and  subjects,  between  fathers  and  children, 
and  the  paternal  love  of  God  to  his  children,  men,  are  every  where 
reflected  in  his  paper — with  Rousseau  there  is  never  any  mention  of 
such  bonds  of  love. 

A  year  after  the  publication  of  the  Evening  Hour,  namely,  in  1*781, 
appeared  the  first  part  of  that  work  of  Pestalozzi's  which  established 
his  reputation,  which  exercised  an  extensive  and  wholesome  influence 
at  the  time,  and  which  will  continue  to  exercise  an  influence  in  future. 
That  work  is  "  Leonard  and  Gertrude :  A  Book  for  the  People." 
It  was  undertaken  at  a  time,  when,  as  he  relates,  "  my  old  friends 
looked  upon  it  as  almost  settled  that  I  should  end  my  days  in  a 
workhouse,  or  in  a  lunatic  asylum."  The  form  was  suggested  by 
Marmontel's  Conies  moraux\  and  he  was  stimulated  to  effort,  by  a 
few  words  of  encouragement  from  the  bookseller  Fiissli,  of  Zurich,  or 
rather  of  the  brother  better  known  as  J^useli,  the  painter.  After  a 
few  attempts  at  composition  with  which  he  was  not  satisfied,  "the 
history  of  Leonard  and  Gertrude  flowed  from  my  pen,  I  know  not 
how,  and  developed  itself  of  its  own  accord,  without  my  having  the 
slightest  plan  in  my  head,  and  even  without  my  thinking  of  one. 
In  a  few  weeks,  the  book  stood  there,  without  my  knowing  exactly 
how  I  had  done  it.  I  felt  its  value,  but  only  as  a  man  in  his  sleep 
feels  the  value  of  some  piece  of  good  fortune  of  which  he  is  just 
dreaming.  "  The  book  appeared,  and  excited  quite  a  remarkable  degree 
of  interest  in  my  own  country  and  throughout  the  whole  of  Germany. 
Nearly  all  the  journals  spoke  in  its  praise,  and,  what  is  perhaps  still 
more,  nearly  all  the  almanacs  became  full  of  it;  but  the  most  unex- 
pected thing  to  me  was  that,  immediately  after  its  appearance,  the 
Agricultural  Society  of  Bern  awarded  me  their  great  gold  medal,  with 
a  letter  of  thanks.'7 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  Qg 

Pestalozzi  himself  has  repeatedly  spoken  of  the  character  and  ob- 
ject of  Leonard  and  Gertrude.  In  the  preface  to  the  first  edition  of 
the  work,  he  says :  "  In  that  which  I  here  relate,  and  which  I  have 
for  the  most  part  seen  and  heard  myself  in  the  course  of  an  active 
life,  I  have  even  taken  care  not  once  to  add  my  own  opinion  to  what 
I  saw  and  heard  the  people  themselves  feeling,  judging,  believing, 
speaking,  and  attempting.  And  now  this  will  show  itself: — If  the 
results  of  my  observation  are  true,  and  if  I  gave  them  as  I  received 
them,  and  as  it  is  my  aim  to  do,  they  will  find  acceptance  with  all 
those  who  themselves  have  daily  before  their  eyes  the  things  which 
I  relate.  If,  however,  they  are  incorrect,  if  they  are  the  work  of  my 
imagination  and  the  preaching  of  my  own  opinions,  they  will,  like 
other  Sunday  sermons,  vanish  on  the  Monday."  In  the  preface  to 
the  second  edition,  Pestalozzi  gives  as  the  object  of  the  book,  "  To 
bring  about  a  better  popular  education,  based  upon  the  true  condition 
of  the  people  and  their  natural  relations."  "It  was,"  he  says,  "my 
first  word  to  the  heart  of  the  poor  and  destitute  in  the  land.  It  was 
my  first  word  to  the  heart  of  those  who  stand  in  God's  stead  to  the 
poor  and  destitute  in  the  land.  It  was  ray  first  word  to  the  mothers 
in  the  land,  and  to  the  heart  which  God  gave  them,  to  be  to  theirs 
what  no  one  on  earth  can  be  in  their  stead.'' 

"I  desired  nothing,  and  to-day,  (1800,)  I  desire  nothing  else,  as  the 
object  of  my  life,  but  the  welfare  of  the  people,  whom  I  love,  and 
whom  I  feel  to  be  miserable  as  few  feel  them  to  be  miserable,  having 
with  them  borne  their  sufferings  as  few  have  borne  them." 

The  remarks  which  I  have  cited  characterize  the  soul  of  Leonard 
and  Gertrude.  In  the  severe  years  of  suffering  at  Neuhof,  Pestalozzi 
appeared  to  have  wrought  and  suffered  in  vain.  "  To  the  accomplish- 
ment of  my  purpose,"  he  says,  "  there  stood  opposed  my  entire  want 
of  trained  practical  skill,  and  a  vast  disproportion  between  the  extent 
of  my  will  and  the  limits  of  my  ability." 

)  He  did  not  work  in  vain,  however ;  what  was  denied  him  on  the 
one  side  turned  out  to  his  advantage  on  the  other.  If  he  lacked  all 
skill  in  carrying  out  his  ideas,  he  possessed  on  the  other  hand,  in  the 
highest  degree,  the  faculty  of  observing,  comprehending,  and  por- 
traying character.  If  he  was  not  able  to  exhibit  to  the  world  his 
ideal  realized,  it  was  given  to  him  to  infuse  the  loving  desires  of  his 
heart  into  the  hearts  of  others,  by  means  of  his  talent  of  poetical 
delineation.  He  might  hope  that  men  of  practical  ability  would  be 
among  the  readers  of  his  book,  and  would  be  incited  by  it  to  realize 
what  he  only  knew  how  to  picture.  He  has  found  such  readers. 
Leonard  and  Gertrude  is  in  so  many  hands,  that  it  is  almost  superflu- 
ous to  give  a  selection  from  the  work.  Only  this.  The  principal 


(J4  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

person  in  it  is  Gertrude,  the  wife  of  Leonard,  a  good-natured  but 
rather  weak  man,  whose  stay  and  guardian  she  is.  The  manner  in 
which  she  keeps  house  and  instructs  and  trains  her  children,  is  Pesta- 
lozzi's  ideal.  Such  house-keeping,  such  a  manner  of  instructing  and 
training,  he  desires  for  all  people.  Gertrude  is  consulted  even  in  the 
management  of  the  village  school.  Her  house-keeping  is  the  bright 
side  of  the  circumstances  depicted ;  in  contrast  with  her  is  a  terribly 
dark  side,  a  peasant  community  in  the  deepest  depravity.  It  is  re- 
lated of  what  Ar-ner,  the  equally  benevolent  and  intelligent  lord  of 
the  village,  does  to  check  the  depravity. 

Pestalozzi  wished  to  give  the  people  the  knowledge  and  skill  need- 
ful for  them  chiefly  by  means  of  a  good  elementary  instruction.  If 
this  instruction  began  at  the  right  place,  and  proceeded  properly, 
what  an  entirely  different  race  would  arise  out  of  the  children  so 
instructed,  a  race  made  independent  by  intelligence  and  skill ! 

In  vain,  however,  did  Pestalozzi  look  around  him  for  elementary 
teachers  who  could  and  would  instruct  after  his  manner  and  in  his 
spirit.  Seminaries,  too,  were  wanting  in  which  such  teachers  could 
be  trained.  Then  the  thought  occurred  to  him  who  had  grown  up  in 
his  mother's  parlor :  "  I  will  place  the  education  of  the  people  in  the 
hands  of  the  mothers;  I  will  transplant  it  out  of  the  school-room  into 
the  parlor."  Gertrude  was  to  be  the  model  of  mothers.  But  how 
are  the  mothers  in  the  lower  classes  to  be  qualified  for  instructing? — 
We  shall  see  how  Pestalozzi's  Compendiums  are  meant  to  be  an  an- 
swer to  this  question,  to  supply  the  place  of  knowledge  and  teaching 
talent.  The  mothers  have  only  to  keep  strictly  to  these  books  in  the 
instruction  of  their  children  ;  if  they  do  this,  the  mother  of  the  most 
limited  capacity  will  instruct  just  as  well  as  the  most  talented ;  com- 
pendiums  and  method  are  to  equalize  their  minds:  such  was  Pesta- 
lozzi's ideal,  to  which  I  shall  afterward  come  back. 

With  extreme  short-sightedness,  the  persons  in  immediate  inter- 
course with  Pestalozzi  saw  in  this  book  of  his  dearly-bought  expe- 
rience nothing  more  than  a  proof  that  its  author  was  born  for  novel- 
writing,  and  would  in  future  be  able  to  earn  his  bread  by  it. 

Others  understood  better  the  value  of  the  book.  Karl  von  Bon- 
stetten  entreated  Pestalozzi  to  come  and  live  with  him  on  his  estate 
in  Italian  Switzerland ;  the  Austrian  Minister  of  Finance,  Count  Zin- 
zendorf,  wished  to  have  him  in  his  neighborhood.  Subsequently,  he 
became  known,  through  Count  Hohenwart,  in  Florence,  to  the  Grand 
Duke  Leopold  of  Tuscany,  who  was  about  to  give  him  an  appoint- 
ment, when  he  was  called  by  the  death  of  Joseph  II.,  to  the  imperial 
throne  of  Germany,  and  the  appointment,  was  therefore  not  made. 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  55 

If  it  be  asked  whether  he  would  have  been  of  any  use  in  a  post  of 
importance,  a  word  of  Lavater's  upon  this  subject  may  contain  the 
answer.  Pestalozzi  tells  us — "  He  once  said  to  his  wife,  *  If  I  were  a 
prince,  I  would  consult  Pestalozzi  in  every  thing  that  concerns  the 
people  and  the  improvement  of  their  condition ;  but  I  would  never 
trust  him  with  a  farthing  of  money.'  At  another  time,  he  said  to  my- 
self, *  When  I  only  once  see  a  line  of  yours  without  a  mistake,  I  will 
believe  you  capable  of  much,  very  much,  that  you  would  like  to  do 
and  to  be.' " 

FOR  seventeen  years  after  the  publication  of  Leonard  and  Gertrude, 
Pestalozzi  continued  to  drag  on  his  needy  and  depressed  existence  at 
Neuhof,  where  he  spent  altogether  thirty  years.  Of  his  outward  life 
during  those  seventeen  years,  we  learn  little  else,  besides  the  general 
fact  just  stated.  It  is  worthy  of  mention,  that  in  this  period  he  en- 
tered the  order  of  Illuminati,  an  order  which  was  characterized  by 
infidelity,  exaggerated  ideas  of  enlightenment,  and  destructive  but  not 
reconstructive  principles,  and  that  he  even  became  eventually  the  head 
of  the  order  in  Switzerland.  He  soon  discovered  his  mistake,  how- 
ever, and  withdrew  from  it.  "That  which  is  undertaken  by  associa- 
tions," he  says,  "  usually  falls  into  the  hands  of  intriguers." 

In  this  period  he  wrote  several  books. 

In  the  year  1782,  he  published  "Christopher  and  Alice."  He 
himself  relates  the  origin  of  this  work.  People  had  imbibed  from 
Leonard  and  Gertrude  the  idea,  that  all  the  depravity  among  the 
common  people  proceeded  from  the  subordinate  functionaries  in  the 
villages.  "  In  Christopher  and  Alice,"  says  Pestalozzi,  "  I  wished  to 
make  apparent  to  the  educated  public  the  connection  of  those  causes 
of  popular  depravity  which  are  to  be  found  higher  in  the  social  scale, 
but  which  on  this  account  are  also  more  disguised  and  concealed, 
with  the  naked,  undisguised,  and  unconcealed  causes  of  it,  as  they  are 
manifested  in  the  villages  in  the  persons  of  the  unworthy  function- 
aries. For  this  purpose,  I  made  a  peasant  family  read  together  Leon- 
ard and  Gertrude,  and  say  things  about  the  story  of  that  work,  and 
the  persons  introduced  in  it,  which  I  thought  might  not  occur  of 
themselves  to  everybody's  mind." 

So  says  Pestalozzi  in  the  year  1826;  but  he  spoke  otherwise  in  the 
preface  to  the  book  when  it  first  appeared,  in  1782.  "Reader!  "  he 
says,  "  this  book  which  thou  takest  into  thy  hand  is  an  attempt  to 
produce  a  manual  of  instruction  for  the  use  of  the  universal  school 
of  humanity,  the  parlor.  I  wish  it  to  be  read  in  every  cottage." 

5 


QQ  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

This  wish  was  not  accomplished,  as  we  learn  from  the  preface  to 
the  second  edition,  (1824,)  which  commences  thus,  "This  book  has 
not  found  its  way  at  all  into  the  hands  of  the  people.  In  my  native 
land,  even  in  the  canton  of  my  native  town,  and  in  the  very  village  in 
which  I  once  lived,  it  has  remained  as  strange  and  unknown,  as  if  it 
ha-d  not  been  in  existence." 

In  the  same  year,  1782,  and  the  one  following,  Pestalozzi  edited 
"  A  Swiss  Journal,"  of  which  a  number  appeared  every  week.  In 
this  Journal,  he  communicated,  among  other  things,  memoirs  of  de- 
ceased friends.  Thus  he  wrote  the  memoirs  of  Frolich,  the  pastor  of 
Birr,  who  had  died  young.  Pestalozzi  says  of  him,  "  he  dedicated 
himself  to  the  work  of  the  great  divine  calling,  but  eternal  love  dedi- 
cated him  to  the  liberty  of  eternal  life."  The  way  in  which  he  speaks 
of  the  excellent  Iselin,  who  had  died  in  1782,  is  particularly  affecting. 
"  I  should  have  perished  in  the  depths  into  which  I  had  fallen,"  he 
says,  "  if  Iselin  had  not  raised  me  up.  Iselin  made  me  feel  that  I 
had  done  something,  even  in  the  poor  school." 

The  discourse  "  on  Legislation  and  Infanticide  "  also  appeared  in 
1782. 

About  1783,  Pestalozzi  contemplated  the  establishment  of  a  lunatic 
asylum  and  a  reformatory  institution,  and  wrote  upon  the  subject ;  the 
manuscript,  however,  was  lost. 

In  the  years  between  1780  and  1790,  in  the  days  of  the  approach- 
ing French  revolution,  and  in  the  first  symptoms  of  the  dangers  which 
its  influence  on  Switzerland  might  entail,"  *  he  wrote  "The  Figures 
to  my  ABC-Book;  they  were  not  published,  however,  till  1795:  a 
new  edition,  under  the  title  of  "Fables,"  came  out  in  1805.  They 
relate  principally  to  the  condition  of  Switzerland  at  that  time. 

In  the  summer  of  1792,  he  went  to  Germany,  at  the  invitation  of 
his  sister  in  Leipzig,  and  became  acquainted  with  Gothe,  Herder, 
"Wieland,  Klopstock,  and  Jacobi ;  he  also  visited  several  normal 
schools. 

In  1798  appeared  Pestalozzi's  "Researches  into  the  Course  of  Na- 
ture in  the  Development  of  the  Human  Race."  He  says  himself, 
speaking  of  this  book,  "  I  wrought  at  it  for  three  long  years  with  in- 
credible toil,  chiefly  with  the  view  of  clearing  up  my  own  mind  upon 
the  tendency  of  my  favorite  notions,  and  of  bringing  my  natural 
feelings  into  harmony  with  my  ideas  of  civil  rights  and  morality. 
But  this  work  too  is,  to  me,  only  another  evidence  of  my  inward 
helplessness,  the  mere  play  of  my  powers  of  research ;  my  views  were 

'Pestalozzi 's  words  in  the  preface  to  the  "  Figures." 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  57 

altogether  one-sided,  while  I  was  without  a  proportionate  degree  of 
control  over  myself  in  regard  to  them,  and  the  work  was  left  void  of 
any  adequate  effort  after  practical  excellence,  which  was  so  necessary 
for  my  purpose.  The  disproportion  between  my  ability  and  my  views 
only  increased  the  more.  The  effect  of  my  book  upon  those  by 
whom  I  was  surrounded  was  like  the  effect  of  all  that  I  did ;  scarcely 
any  one  understood  me,  and  I  did  not  find  in  my  vicinity  two  men 
who  did  not  half  give  me  to  understand  that  they  looked  upon  the 
entire  book  as  so  much  balderdash/' 

Pestalozzi  here  assumes  three  states  of  man :  an  original,  instinct- 
like,  innocent,  animal  state  of  nature,  out  of  which  he  passes  into  the 
social  state,  (this  reminds  us  of  Rosseau ;)  he  works  himself  out  of 
the  social  state  and  raises  himself  to  the  moral.  The  social  man  is 
in  an  unhappy  middle  condition  between  animal  propensities  and 
moral  elevation. 

The  original  animal  state  of  nature  can  not  be  pointed  to  in  any  one 
individual  man ;  the  innocence  of  that  state  ceases  with  the  first  cry 
of  the  new-born  child,  and  "  animal  depra\7ity  arises  from  whatever 
stands  opposed  to  the  normal  condition  of  our  animal  existence." 
Against  this  depravity,  man  seeks  for  aid  in  the  social  state,  but  finds 
it  not ;  it  is  only  the  moral  will  that  can  save  him,  "  the  force  of 
which  he  opposes  to  the  force  of  his  nature.  He  will  fear  a  God,  in 
order  that  the  animal  instincts  of  his  nature  shall  not  degrade  him  in 
liis  inmost  soul.  He  feels  what  he  can  do  in  this  respect,  and  then  he 
makes  what  he  can  do  the  law  to  himself  of  what  he  ought  to  do. 
Subjected  to  this  law,  which  he  imposes  upon  himself,  he  is  distin- 
guished from  all  other  creatures  with  which  we  are  acquainted." 

Where  and  when,  for  example,  did  Pestalozzi's  man  of  nature  ever 
exist — an  innocent  animal  man,  endowed  with  instinct  ?  *  This 
character  does  not  apply  to  Adam  in  Paradise,  who  was  not  an 
animal,  but  a  lord  of  the  animals,  and  still  less  does  it  apply  to  any 
child  of  Adam.  In  how  simple  and  sublime  a  manner,  on  the 

*  Voltaire  wrote  the  following  characteristic  letter  to  Rosseau  about  his  discourse,  pre- 
pared and  offered  for  the  prize  proposed  by  the  Academy  of  Dixon,  on  the  origin  of  the 
inequality  among  men,  and  published  in  1775: — "I  have  received  your  new  book  against  the 
human  race,  and  thank  you  for  it.  You  will  please  men,  to  whom  you  speak  the  truth,  but 
not  make  them  better.  No  one  could  paint  in  stronger  colors  the  horrors  of  human  society, 
from  which  our  ignorance  and  weakness  promise  themselves  so  many  delights.  Never  has 
any  one  employed  so  much  genius  to  make  us  into  beasts  ;  when  one  reads  your  book,  one 
is  seized  with  a  desire  to  go  down  on  all  fours.  Nevertheless,  as  I  have  left  off  this  habit 
already  more  than  sixty  years,  I  feel,  unfortunately,  that  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  take  to  it 
again,  and  I  leave  this  natural  mode  of  walking  to  others  who  are  more  worthy  of  it  than 
you  and  I.  Neither  can  I  take  ship,  in  order  to  visit  the  savages  of  Canada,  firstly,  because 
the  maladiesto  which  I  am  condemned,  render  a  European  physician  necessary  to  me  ;  then 
again,  because  there  is  at  present  war  in  that  country,  and  the  examples  of  our  nations  lias 
made  the  savages  almost  as  bad  as  we  are  ourselves.  I  am  content  to  live  as  a  peaceful 
savage  in  the  lonely  district  adjoining  your  native  land,  &c." 


(53  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

contrary,  do  the  Holy  Scriptures  comprehend  and  characterize  the 
whole  human  race. 

Thus  we  see  Pestalozzi  but  little  or  not  at  all  engaged  in  educa- 
tional undertakings  during  the  eighteen  years  from  1780  to  1798; 
his  writings  too,  during  this  time  are  mainly  of  a  philosophical  and 
political  character,  and  relate  only  indirectly  to  education.  But  the 
French  revolution  introduced  a  new  epoch,  for  Pestalozzi,  as  well  as 
for  Switzerland. 

The  revolutionary  armies  of  France  pressed  into  the  country,  old 
forms  were  destroyed,  the  whole  of  Switzerland  was  consolidated  into 
an  "inseparable  republic,"  at  the  head  of  which  stood  five  directors, 
after  the  model  of  the  French  directional  government  of  that  time. 
Among  these  was  Legrand,  a  man  of  a  class  that  is  always  becoming 
more  rare.  I  visited  the  amiable  octogenarian  in  Steinthal,  where 
formerly,  with  his  friend  Oberlin,  he  had  labored  for  the  welfare  of 
the  communes.  When  the  conversation  turned  on  the  happiness  or 
the  education  of  the  people,  or  on  the  education  of  youth  generally, 
the  old  man  became  animated  with  youthful  enthusiasm,  and  tears 
started  to  his  eyes. 

Legrand  was  a  friend  of  Pestalozzi's ;  no  wonder,  seeing  that  the 
two  men  very  nearly  resembled  each  other  in  their  way  of  thinking, 
as  well  as  in  their  enthusiastic  activity  and  their  unbounded  hopeful- 
ness. Pestalozzi  joined  the  new  republic,  while,  at  the  same  time,  he 
did  all  in  his  power  to  subdue  the  Jacobinical  element  in  it.  lie 
wrote  a  paper  "  On  the  Present  Condition  and  Disposition  of  Man- 
kind." In  this  paper,  as  also  in  the  "  Swiss  People's  Journal,"  which 
he  edited  at  the  instigation  of  the  government,  he  pressed  upon  the 
attention  of  the  people  the  necessity  of  a  return  to  the  integrity  and 
piety  of  their  ancestors ;  the  instruction  and  education  of  youth,  he 
represented,  were  the  means  for  attaining  this  object. 

Although,  in  pointing  to  an  ennobling  education  of  youth,  and 
especially  the  youth  of  the  people  and  the  poor,  as  the  securest  guar- 
antee of  a  lawfully  ordered  political  condition,  he  only  did  that  which 
he  could  not  leave  undone ;  still  most  people  believed  that  he  was 
speaking  and  writing  thus  industriously,  merely  with  the  view  of  pro- 
curing for  himself  an  office  under  the  new  government,  when  an  op- 
portunity should  arise.  The  government  on  whom  he  urged  with  far 
too  much  vehemence  the  importance  of  order,  justice,  and  law,  actu» 
ally  offered  him  an  appointment,  in  the  hope  that  he  would  then  be 
quiet.  But  what  was  their  astonishment,  when,  in  reply  to  their  in- 
quiry as  to  what  office  he  would  be  willing  to  accept,  he  said,  "  I  WILL 
BE  A  SCHOOLMASTER."  But  few  understood  him,  only  those  who, 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  gg 

like  himself,  were  earnestly  desirous  for  the  foundation  of  a  truly 
equitable  political  condition. 

Legrand  entered  into  the  idea ;  and  Pestalozzi  was  already  about 
to  open  an  educational  institution  in  the  canton  of  Argovia,  when  one 
of  the  misfortunes  of  war  intervened.  On  the  9th  of  September, 
1798,  Stanz  in  Unterwalden  was  burnt  by  the  French,  the  entire  can- 
ton was  laid  waste,  and  a  multitude  of  fatherless  and  motherless 
children  were  wandering  about  destitute  and  without  a  shelter.  Le- 
grand now  called  upon  Pestalozzi  to  go  to  Stanz  and  undertake  the 
care  of  the  destitute  children. 

Pestalozzi  went ;  what  he  experienced  he  has  himself  told  us. 

The  convent  of  the  Ursulines  there  was  given  up  to  him  ;  he  took 
up  his  abode  in  it,  accompanied  only  by  a  housekeeper,  before  it  was 
even  put  into  a  fit  condition  for  the  reception  of  children.  Gradually 
he  gathered  around  him  as  many  as  eighty  poor  children,  from  four 
to  ten  years  old,  some  of  them  orphans,  horribly  neglected,  infected 
with  the  itch  and  scurvy,  and  covered  with  vermin.  Among  ten  of 
them,  scarcely  one  could  say  the  alphabet.  He  describes  the  educa- 
tional experiments  which  he  made  with  such  children,  and  speaks 
of  these  experiments  as  "  a  sort  of  feeler  of  the  pulse  of  the  science 
which  he  sought  to  improve,  a  venturesome  effort."  "A  person  with 
the  use  of  his  eyes,"  he  adds,  "  would  certainly  not  have  ventured 
it ;  fortunately,  I  was  blind." 

For  example,  under  the  most  difficult  circumstances,  he  wanted  to 
prove,  by  actual  experiment,  that  those  things  in  which  domestic  edu- 
cation possesses  advantages  must  be  imitated  in  public  education. 

He  gave  the  children  no  set  lessons  on  religion ;  being  suspected 
by  the  Roman  Catholic  parents,  as  a  Protestant,  and  at  the  same  time 
as  an  adherent  of  the  new  government,  he  did  not  dare;  but  when- 
ever the  occurrence  of  daily  life  presented  an  opportunity,  he  would 
make  them  the  groundwork  of  inculcating  some  religious  or  moral 
lesson.  As  he  had  formerly  done  at  Neuhof,  he  sought  to  combine 
intellectual  instruction  with  manual  labor,  the  establishment  for  in- 
struction with  that  for  industrial  occupations,  and  to  fuse  the  two  into 
each  other.  But  it  became  clear  to  him,  that  the  first  stages  of  in- 
tellectual training  must  be  separated  from  those  of  industrial  training 
and  precede  the  fusion  of  the  two.  It  was  here  in  Stanz  also  that 
Pestalozzi,  for  want  of  other  assistants,  set  children  to  instruct  chil- 
dren, a  plan  which  Lancaster  was  similarly  led  to  adopt  in  conse- 
quence of  the  inability  of  the  teacher  to  instruct  the  large  numbers 
of  children  who  were  placed  under  his  charge.*  Pestalozzi  remarks, 

*  Lancaster's   monitors,  i.  e   children,  set  to  teach  and   superintend   other  children.    "At 
that  time,  (1798,)"  says  Pestalozzi,  "  nobody  had  begun  to  speak  of  mutual  instruction." 


70  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

•without  disapprobation,  that  a  feeling  of  honor  was  by  this  means, 
awakened  in  the  children ;  a  remark  which  directly  contradicts  his 
opinion,  that  the  performance  of  the  duties  of  the  monitor  proceeded 
from  a  disposition  similar  to  brotherly  love. 

Another  plan,  which  is  now  imitated  in  countless  elementary  schools, 
was  likewise  tried  by  Pestalozzi  at  Stanz,  namely,  that  of  making  a 
number  of  children  pronounce  the  same  sentences  simultaneously, 
syllable  for  syllable.*  "The  confusion  arising  from  a  number  of 
children  repeating  after  me  at  once,"  he  says,  "  led  me  to  see  the  ne- 
cessity of  a  measured  pace  in  speaking,  and  this  measured  pace 
heightened  the  effect  of  the  lesson." 

Pestalozzi  repeats,  in  his  account  of  the  Stanz  institution,  what  he 
had  brought  forward  in  Leonard  and  Gertrude.  "  My  aim,"  he  says, 
*'  was  to  carry  the  simplification  of  the  means  of  teaching  so  far,  that 
all  the  common  people  might  easily  be  brought  to  teach  their  chil- 
dren, and  gradually  to  render  the  schools  almost  superfluous  for  the 
first  elements  of  instruction.  As  the  mother  is  the  first  to  nourish 
her  child  physically,  so  also,  by  the  appointment  of  God,  she  must  be 
the  first  to  give  it  spiritual  nourishment;  I  reckon  that  very  great 
evils  have  been  engendered  by  sending  children  too  early  to  school, 
and  by  all  the  artificial  means  of  educating  them  away  from  home. 
The  time  will  come,  so  soon  as  we  shall  have  simplified  instruction, 
when  every  mother  will  be  able  to  teach,  without  the  help  of  others, 
and  thereby,  at  the  same  time,  to  go  on  herself  always  learning." 

I  refer  the  reader  to  Pestalozzi's  own  description  of  his  singularly 
active  labors  in  Stanz,  where  he  was  not  only  the  teacher  and  trainer 
of  eighty  children,  but,  as  he  says,  paymaster,  manservant,  and  al- 
most housemaid,  at  the  same  time.  In  addition  to  this,  sickness 
broke  out  among  the  children,  and  the  parents  showed  themselves 
shamelessly  ungrateful. 

Pestalozzi  would  have  sunk  under  these  efforts  had  he  not  been 
liberated  on  the  8th  of  June,  1799,  by  the  French,  who,  being  hard 
pressed  by  the  Austrians,  came  to  Stanz,  and  converted  one  wing  of 
the  convent  into  a  military  hospital.  This  induced  him  to  let  the 
children  return  to  their  friends,  and  he  went  himself  up  the  Gurnigel 
mountains,  to  a  medicinal  spring.  Only  twenty-two  children  re- 
mained ;  these,  says  Mr.  Heussler,  "  were  attended  to,  taught,  and 
trained,  if  not  in  Pestalozzi's  spirit,  still  with  care  and  with  more 
order  and  cleanliness,  under  the  guidance  of  the  reverend  Mr. 
Businger." 

*  The  plan  of  simultaneous  reading  and  speaking  had  been  introduced  into  the  Austrian 
schools  at  an  earlier  period. 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI/  7} 

"  On  the  Gurnigel,"  says  Pestalozzi,  "  I  enjoyed  days  of  recreation. 
I  required  them ;  it  is  a  wonder  that  I  am  still  alive.  I  shall  not  for- 
get those  days,  as  long  as  I  live :  they  saved  me,  but  I  could  not  live 
without  my  work." 

Pestalozzi  was  much  blamed  for  giving  up  the  Stanz  institution, 
although  necessity  had  compelled  him  to  do  so.  "  People  said  to  my 
face,"  he  says,  "that  it  was  a  piece  of  folly,  to  believe  that,  because  a 
man  had  written  something  sensible  in  his  thirtieth  year,  he  would 
therefore  be  capable  of  doing  something  sensible  in  his  fiftieth  year. 
I  was  said  to  be  brooding  over  a  beautiful  dream." 

Pestalozzi  came  down  from  the  Gurnigel ;  at  the  advice  of  Chief 
Justice  Schnell,  he  went  to  Burgdorf,  the  second  town  in  the  canton 
of  Bern,  where  through  the  influence  of  well-wishers,  Pestalozzi  ob- 
tained leave  to  give  instruction  in  the  primary  schools.  *  He  had 
many  enemies.  The  head  master  of  the  schools  imagined  that  Pes- 
talozzi wanted  to  supplant  him  in  his  appointment :  the  report  spread 
that  the  Heidelberg  catechism  was  in  danger :  "  it  was  whispered," 
says  Pestalozzi,  "  that  I  myself  could  not  write,  nor  work  accounts, 
nor  even  read  properly.  Popular  reports  are  not  always  entirely  des- 
titute of  truth,"  he  adds ;  "  it  is  true  that  I  could  not  write,  nor  read, 
nor  work  accounts  well. 

As  far  as  the  regulations  of  the  school  would  allow,  Pestalozzi  pro- 
secuted here  the  experiments  in  elementary  instruction  which  he  had 
begun  at  Stanz.  M.  Glayre,  a  member  of  the  executive  council  of 
the  canton,  to  whom  he  endeavored  to  explain  the  tendency  of  these 
experiments,  made  the  ominous  remark,  "  You  want  to  render  educa- 
tion mechanical."  "  He  hit  the  nail  on  the  head,"  says  Pestalozzi, 
"  and  supplied  me  with  the  very  expression  that  indicated  the  object 
of  my  endeavors,  and  of  the  means  which  I  employed  for  attaining 
it." 

Pestalozzi  had  not  been  schoolmaster  at  Burgdorf,  quite  a  year, 
when  he  had  a  pulmonary  attack ;  in  consequence  of  this  he  gave  up 
the  appointment,  and  a  new  epoch  of  his  life  commenced.  M.  Fis- 
cher, secretary  to  the  Helvetian  minister  of  public  instruction,  had 
entertained  the  idea  of  founding  a  normal  school  in  the  castle  of 
Burgdorf,  but  had  died  before  carrying  it  into  execution.  With  this 
end  in  view,  he  had  induced  M.  Kriisi  to  come  to  Burgdorf.  Krusi 
was  a  native  of  Gaiss,  in  the  canton  of  Appenzell,  was  schoolmaster 
there  at  the  early  age  of  eighteen,  and  had  migrated  thence  in  the 
year  1799,  taking  with  him  28  children.  Pestalozzi  now  proposed 

*  In  a  school  in  which  children  from  four  to  eight  years  old  received  instructions  in 
reading  and  writing,  under  the  general  superintendence  of  a  female  teacher. 


72  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

to  Kriisi  to  join  him  in  establishing  an  educational  institution :  Krusi 
willingly  agreed,  and  through  him  the  cooperation  of  M.  Tobler, 
who  had  been  for  the  last  five  years  tutor  in  a  family  in  Basel,  was 
obtained;  through  Tobler,  that  of  M.  Buss,  of  Tubingen.  With 
these  three  assistants,  Pestalozzi  opened  the  institution  in  the  winter 
of  1800. 

It  was  in  Burgdorf  that  Pestalozzi  commenced  a  work  which,  with 
the  "  Evening  Hour,"  and  "  Leonard  and  Gertrude,"  stands  out  con- 
spicuously amongst  his  writings.  It  was  commenced  on  the  1st  of 
January,  1801. 

It  bears  the  queer  title,  "  How  Gertrude  teaches  her  children  :  an 
attempt  to  give  Directions  to  Mothers  how  to  instruct  their  own  Chil- 
dren." The  reader  must  not  be  misled  by  the  title;  the  book 
contains  any  thing  but  directions  for  mothers." 

There  are  numerous  contradictions  throughout  the  book,  as  well  as 
on  the  title  page ;  and  it  is  therefore  a  most  difficult  task  to  give  a 
condensed  view  of  it.  Almost  the  only  way  to  accomplish  this  will 
be  to  resolve  it  into  its  elements. 

Nothing  can  be  more  touching  than  the  passage  in  which  the 
author  speaks  of  the  desire  of  his  whole  life  to  alleviate  the  condition 
of  the  suffering  people — of  his  inability  to  satisfy  this  desire — of  his 
many  blunders — and  of  his  despair  of  himself;  and  then  humbly 
thanks  God,  who  had  preserved  him,  when  he  had  cast  himself  away, 
and  who  graciously  permitted  him,  even  in  old  age,  to  look  forward 
to  a  brighter  future.  It  is  impossible  to  read  any  thing  more  affecting. 

The  second  element  of  this  book  is  a  fierce  and  fulminating  battle 
against  the  sins  and  faults  of  his  time.  He  advances  to  the  assault 
at  storm-pace,  and  clears  every  thing  before  him  with  the  irresistible 
force  of  truth.  He  directs  his  attack  principally  against  the  hollow 
education  of  our  time,  particularly  in  the  higher  ranks  of  society. 
He  calls  the  members  of  the  aristocracy  "  miserable  creatures  of  mere 
words,  who  by  the  artificialities  of  their  mode  of  life  are  rendered 
incapable  of  feeling  that  they  themselves  stand  on  stilts,  and  that 
they  must  come  down  off  their  wretched  wooden  legs,  in  order  to 
stand  on  God's  earth  with  even  the  same  amount  of  firmness  as  the 
people." 

In  another  part  of  the  book,  Pestalozzi  declaims  warmly  against  all 
the  education  of  the  present  age.  "  It  sacrifices,  (he  says,)  the  sub- 
stance of  all  instruction  to  the  nonsense  about  particular  isolated  sys- 
tem of  instruction,  and  by  filling  the  mind  with  fragments  of  truth, 
it  quenches  the  spirit  of  truth  itself,  and  deprives  mankind  of  the 
power  of  independence  which  is  based  thereon.  I  have  found,  what 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  73 

was  very  obvious,  that  this  system  of  instruction,  does  not  base  the 
use  of  particular  means  either  on  elementary  principles  or  elementary 
forms.  The  state  of  popular  instruction  rendered  it  inevitable  that 
Europe  should  sink  into  error,  or  rather  madness,  and  into  this  it 
really  did  sink.  On  the  one  hand,  it  raised  itself  into  a  gigantic 
height  in  particular  arts ;  on  the  other,  it  lost  for  the  whole  of  its 
people  all  the  stability  and  support  which  are  to  be  obtained  by  rest- 
ing on  the  guidance  of  nature.  On  the  one  side,  no  quarter  of  the  globe 
ever  stood  so  high  ;  but  on  the  other,  no  quarter  of  the  globe  has  ever 
sunk  so  low.  With  the  golden  head  of  its  particular  arts,  it  touches 
the  clouds,  like  the  image  of  the  prophet ;  but  popular  instruction, 
which  ought  to  be  the  basis  and  support  of  this  golden  head,  is  every 
where,  on  the  contrary,  the  most  wretched,  fragile,  good-for-nothing 
clay,  like  the  feet  of  that  gigantic  image." 

For  this  incongruity  in  our  intellectual  culture,  he  blames  chiefly 
the  art  of  printing,  through  which,  he  says,  the  eyes  have  become 
book-eyes — men  have  become  book-men. 

Throughout  the  work,  he  speaks  against  the  senseless  use  of  the 
tongue — against  the  habit  of  talking  without  any  real  purpose. 
"  The  babbling  disposition  of  our  time,  (he  says,)  is  so  much  bound 
up  with  the  struggle  of  tens  of  thousands  and  hundreds  of  thousands 
for  their  daily  bread,  and  with  their  slavish  adherence  to  custom,  that 
it  will  be  long,  very  long,  before  this  temporizing  race  shall  gladly 
receive  into  their  hearts  truths  so  much  opposed  to  their  sensual  de- 
pravity. Wherever  the  fundamental  faculties  of  the  human  mind 
are  allowed  to  lie  dormant,  and  on  those  dormant  faculties  empty 
words  are  propt  up,  there  you  are  making  dreamers,  whose  visions  are 
all  the  more  visionary  because  the  words  that  were  propt  up  on  their 
miserable  yawning  existence,  were  high-sounding,  and  full  of  preten- 
sions. As  a  matter  of  course,  such  pupils  will  dream  any  and  every 
thing  before  they  will  dream  that  they  are  sleeping  and  dreaming  ; 
but  all  those  about  them  who  are  awake,  perceive  their  presumption, 
and,  (when  it  suits,)  put  them  down  as  somnambulists. 

"The  meaningless  declamation  of  this  superficial  knowledge  pro- 
duces men  who  fancy  that  they  have  reached  the  goal  in  all  branches 
of  study,  just  because  their  whole  life  is  a  belabored  prating  about 
that  goal;  but  they  never  accomplish  so  much  as  to  make  an  effort  to 
reach  it,  because  through  their  life  it  never  had  that  alluring  charm 
in  their  eyes  which  any  object  must  possess  to  induce  a  man  to  make 
an  effort  to  attain  it.  The  present  age  abounds  in  men  of  this  class, 
and  is  diseased  by  a  kind  of  wisdom  which  carries  us  forward  pro 
forma,  as  cripples  are  borne  along  a  race-course,  to  the  goal  of  knowl- 


74  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

edge,  when,  at  the  same  time,  it  could  never  enable  us  to  advance 
toward  this  gaol  by  our  own  efforts,  before  our  feet  had  been  healed." 

In  other  parts  of  the  book  he  attacks  governments  as  indifferent  to 
the  welfare  of  the  people.  "  The  lower  classes  of  Europe,  (he  says,) 
are  neglected  and  wretched :  most  of  those  who  stand  sufficiently 
near  to  be  able  to  help  them,  have  no  time  for  thinking  what  may  be 
for  their  welfare — they  have  always  something  to  do  quite  different 
from  this." 

From  this,  the  second  and  polemical  element  of  the  book,  I  pass  to 
the  third  and  positive  one,  namely,  the  kind  of  education  by  which 
Pestalozzi  proposes  to  replace  the  false  education  of  our  time.  This 
might  in  some  measure  be  anticipated  from  the  polemical  passages 
which  have  been  cited. 

He  thus  enunciates  the  problem  which  he  proposed  to  himself  to 
solve :  "  In  the  empirical  researches  which  I  made  in  reference  to  my 
subject,  I  did  not  start  from  any  positive  system ;  I  was  not  ac- 
quainted with  any  one ;  I  simply  put  to  myself  the  question,  What 
would  you  do,  if  you  wanted  to  give  a  single  child  all  the  theoretical 
knowledge  and  practical  skill  which  he  requires  in  order  to  be  able  to 
attend  properly  to  the  great  concerns  of  life,  and  so  attain  to  inward 
contentment  ?" 

Theoretical  knowledge  and  practical  skill  constitute,  accordingly, 
the  most  important  subjects  of  the  work.  They  are  treated  with  a 
special  relation  to  the  two  questions, — What  knowledge  and  skill  do 
children  require  ?  and,  How  are  these  best  imparted  to  them  ?  The 
aim  is  to  point  out  the  proper  object  of  education,  and  the  way  to 
attain  that  object. 

Of  practical  skill,  however,  there  is  comparatively  very  little  said, 
notwithstanding  that  Pestalozzi  sets  so  high  a  value  upon  it.  "  Knowl- 
edge without  skill,  (he  says,)  is  perhaps  the  most  fatal  gift  which  an 
evil  genius  has  bestowed  upon  the  present  age."  But  Pestalozzi's 
ideas  in  relation  to  practical  skill,  and  the  method  of  attaining  it, 
seem  to  have  been  still  indistinct. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  is  quite  at  home  in  the  region  of  theoretical 
knowledge :  to  show  the  starting-point,  the  road,  and  the  destination, 
in  the  journey  through  this  region,  is  the  main  design  of  his  work. 

His  polemic  against  senseless  talking  shows  that  he  had  sought 
and  found  the  real  root  of  the  tree  of  which  words  are  the  spiritual 
blossoms. 

The  beginning  of  all  knowledge,  according  to  Pestalozzi,  is  observa- 
tion ;  the  last  point  to  be  attained,  a  clear  notion.  He  says :  "  If  I 
look  back  and  ask  myself  what  I  really  have  done  toward  the 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  ^5 

improvement  of  the  methods  of  elementary  instruction,  I  find  that,  in 
recognizing  observation  as  the  absolute  basis  of  all  knowledge,  I  have 
established  the  first  and  most  important  principle  of  instruction,  and 
that,  setting  aside  all  particular  systems  of  instructions,  I  have  endeav- 
ored to  discover  what  ought  to  be  the  character  of  the  instruction 
itself,  and  what  are  the  fundamental  laws  according  to  which  the  edu- 
cation of  the  human  race  must  be  determined  by  nature."  In  another 
place,  he  requires  it  to  be  acknowledged,  "that  observation  is  the  ab- 
solute basis  of  all  knowledge,  in  other  words,  that  all  knowledge  must 
proceed  from  observation  and  must  admit  of  being  retraced  to  that 
source." 

But  what  does  Pestalozzi  understand  by  observation  ?  "  It  is,  (he 
says,)  simply  directing  the  senses  to  outward  objects,  and  exciting  con- 
sciousness of  the  impression  produced  on  them  by  those  objects." 
He  refers,  of  course,  principally  to  the  sense  of  sight.  But  the  ear  is 
not  to  be  neglected.  "  When  sounds  are  produced  so  as  to  be  heard 
by  the  child,  and  its  consciousness  of  the  impression  which  these 
sounds  make  on  its  mind  through  the  sense  of  hearing  is  aroused, 
this,  to  the  child,  is  just  as  much  observation,  as  when  objects  are 
placed  before  its  eyes,  and  consciousness  is  awakened  by  the  impres- 
sion which  the  objects  make  on  the  sense  of  sight.  By  the  aid  of 
his  spelling  book,  therefore,  the  child's  ear  is  to  be  familiarized  with 
the  series  of  elementary  sounds  which  constitutes  the  foundation  of 
a  knowledge  of  language,  just  as  it  is  to  be  made  acquainted  with 
visible  objects  by  the  aid  of  his  Book  for  Mothers. 

According  to  this,  observation  would  mean  every  impression  which 
the  mind  receives  through  the  eye  and  the  ear. 

Does  Pestalozzi  exclude  the  remaining  senses  ?  No ;  for  he  fre- 
quently  speaks  of  the  impressions  of  the  jive  senses,  and  he  says  that 
the  understanding  collects  the  impressions  which  the  senses  receive 
from  external  nature  into  a  whole,  or  into  a  notion,  and  then  develops 
this  idea  until  it  attains  clearness.  And  elsewhere  he  says  that  the 
mechanical  form  of  all  instruction  should  be  regulated  by  the  eternal 
laws  according  to  which  the  human  mind  rises  from  the  perceptions 
of  sense  to  clear  notions. 

Pestalozzi  repeatedly  dwells  upon  this  process  of  intellectual 
development. 

Above  every  thing,  he  will  have  attention  given  to  the  first  step  in 
the  process,  namely  observation.  Care  is  to  be  taken  that  the  objects 
are  seen  separately  by  the  children,  not  dimly  at  a  distance,  but  close 
at  hand  and  distinctly ;  then  also  that  there  shall  be  placed  before 
the  children,  not  abnormal,  but  characteristic  specimens  of  any  class 


70  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

of  objects — such  as  will  convey  a  correct  idea  of  the  thing  and  of  its 
most  important  properties.  Thus,  for  example,  a  lame,  one-eyed,  or 
six-fingered  man,  he  says,  would  not  be  proper  to  convey  the  idea  of 
the  human  form. 

Out  of  the  observation  of  an  object,  the  first  thing  that  arises,  he 
says,  is  the  necessity  of  naming  it ;  from  naming  it,  we  pass  on  to 
determining  its  properties,  that  is  to  description ;  out  of  a  clear  des- 
cription is  finally  developed  the  definition — the  distinct  idea  of  the 
object.  The  full  maturity  of  this,  the  last  fruit  of  all  instruction,  de- 
pends materially  on  the  vigorous  germination  of  the  seed  sown  in  the 
first  instance — on  the  amount  of  wisdom  exercised  in  guiding  the 
children  to  habits  of  observation.  Definitions  not  founded  on  obser- 
vations, he  says,  produce  a  superficial  and  unprofitable  kind  of 
knowledge. 

Just  when  we  begin  to  think  that  we  understand  Pestalozzi's  views, 
he  again  leads  us  into  uncertainty  as  to  the  idea  which  he  attaches  to 
observation. 

He  says  the  idea  had  only  lately  struck  him,  "  that  all  our  knowl- 
edge arises  out  of  number,  form,  and  words."  On  this  triple  basis, 
he  says,  education  must  proceed ;  and — 

"  1.  It  must  teach  the  children  to  look  attentively  at  every  object 
which  they  are  made  to  perceive  as  unity,  that  is,  as  separated  from 
those  other  objects  with  which  it  appears  in  connection. 

2.  It  must  make  them  acquainted  with  the  form  of  every  object, 
that  is,  its  size  and  proportion. 

3.  It  must  teach  them  as  early  as  possible  the  names  and  words 
applicable  to  all  the  objects  with  which  they  are  acquainted." 

Pestalozzi  found  it  difficult,  however,  to  answer  the  question,  "  Why 
are  not  all  the  other  properties  which  the  five  senses  enable  us  to  per- 
ceive in  objects,  just  as  much  elements  of  our  knowledge,  as  number, 
form,  and  name  ?"  His  answer  is,  "All  possible  objects  have  neces- 
sarily number,  form,  and  name  ;  but  the  remaining  properties  which 
the  senses  enable  us  to  perceive  are  not  possessed  by  any  object  in 
common  with  all  others,  but  this  property  is  shared  with  one  object, 
and  that  with  another." 

When  Pestalozzi  made  form  a  category  to  embrace  all  and  every 
thing,  he  only  thought  of  the  visible,  as  is  evidenced  by  the  further 
development  of  his  instruction  in  form,  which  deals  chiefly  with  the 
measuring  of  visible  objects. 

But  there  are  innumerable  observations  which  have  nothing  what- 
ever to  do  with  form  and  number ;  for  example,  tasting  honey, 
smelling  roses,  &c. 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  ^ 

The  prominence  which  Pestalozzi  gave  to  form  and  number  caused 
him  to  undertake  a  new  treatment  of  the  subjects  of  geometry  and 
arithmetic.  Subsequently  he  divided  geometry  into  instruction  in 
form  and  instruction  in  spaces,  for  the  reason  that  we  perceive  shape 
and  size,  (mathematical  quality  and  quantity,)  independently  of  each 
other ;  drawing  he  made  a  part  of  the  instruction  in  form — writing  a 
part  of  drawing. 

But  what  became  of  Pestalozzi's  principle,  that  observation  is  the 
foundation  of  all  intelligence,  when  he  thus  gave  an  undue  prominence 
to  form  and  number,  and  neglected  all  other  properties?  Suppose 
that  we  put  a  glass  cube  into  the  hands  of  a  child  and  he  observes  in 
respect  to  it  nothing  else,  but  that  it  has  the  cubic  form,  and,  over  and 
above  this,  that  it  is  one  cube, — so  far  this  glass  cube  is  in  no  way 
distinguished  from  a  wooden  one.  But  if  I  require  to  take  notice  of 
other  properties,  such  as  color,  transparency,  weight.  &c.,  in  order 
that  I  may  form  a  correct  idea  of  the  glass  cube,  as  a  separate  object, 
and  so  describe  it  that  it  shall  be  distinguished  with  certainty  from 
every  other  cube, — then  I  must  fix  my  attention,  not  only  on  form  and 
number,  but  on  all  apparent  properties,  as  elements  in  a  complete 
observation. 

Lastly,  language  itself  has  nothing  to  do  with  observation.  Why 
should  I  not  be  able  to  form  a  perfectly  correct  notion  of  an  object 
that  has  no  name — for  instance  a  newly-discovered  plant  ?  Language 
only  gives  us  the  expression  for  the  impressions  of  the  senses ;  in  it 
is  reflected  the  whole  world  of  our  perceptions.  "  It  is,"  as  Pestalozzi 
rightly  observes,  "  the  reflex  of  all  the  impressions  which  nature's 
entire  domain  has  made  on  the  human  race."  But  what  does  he  go 
on  to  say  ?  "  Therefore  I  make  use  of  it,  and  endeavor,  by  the 
guidance  of  its  uttered  sounds,  to  reproduce  in  the  child  the  self-same 
impressions  which,  in  the  human  race,  have  occasioned  and  formed 
these  sounds.  Great  is  the  gift  of  language.  It  gives  to  the  child  in 
one  moment  what  nature  required  thousands  of  years  to  give  man." 

In  that  case,  every  child  would  be  a  rich  heir  of  antiquity,  without 
the  trouble  of  acquisition;  words  would  be  current  notes  for  the 
things  which  they  designate.  But  both  nature  and  history  protest 
against  payment  in  such  currency,  and  give  only  to  him  that  hath. 
Does  not  Pestalozzi  himself  repeatedly  protest  against  this  very  thing  ? 
"  The  Christian  people  of  our  quarter  of  the  world,  (he  says,)  have 
sunk  into  these  depths,  because  in  their  lower  school  establishments 
the  mind  has  been  loaded  with  a  burden  of  empty  words,  which  has 
not  only  effaced  the  impressions  of  nature,  but  has  even  destroyed  the 
inward  susceptibility  for  such  impressions." 


78  1<IFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OP  PESTALOZZI. 

Pestalozzi's  further  treatment  of  the  instruction  in  language  clearly 
proves  that,  contrary  to  his  own  principles,  he  really  ascribed  a  mag- 
ical power  to  words — that,  he  put  them  more  or  less  in  the  place  of 
observation — and,  (to  speak  with  a  figure,)  that  he  made  the  reflected 
image  of  a  thing  equal  to  the  thing  itself. 

As  this  error  of  Pestalozzi's  is  of  the  greatest  consequence,  I  will 
examine  it  more  closely.  In  the  instruction  in  language,  he  begins 
with  lessons  on  sounds ;  these  are  followed  by  lessons  on  words ;  and 
these  again  by  lessons  on  language. 

I.  LESSONS  ON  SOUNDS. — "The  spelling  book,   (says  Pestalozzi,) 
must  contain  the  entire  range  of  sounds  of  which  the  language  con- 
sists, and  portions  of  it  should  be  repeated  daily  in  every  family,  not 
only  by  the  child  that  is  going  through  the  exercises  to  learn  how  to 
spell,  but  also  by  mothers,  within  hearing  of  the  child  in  the  cradle, 
in  order  that  these  sounds  may,  by  frequent  repetition,  be  so  deeply 
impressed  upon  the  memory  of  the  child,  even  while  it  is  yet  unable 
to  pronounce  a  single  one  of  them,  that  they  shall  never  be  forgotten. 
No  one  imagines  to  what  a  degree  the  attention  of  infants  is  aroused 
by  the  repetition  of  such  simple  sounds  as  ba,  ba,  ba,  da,  da,  da,  ma, 
ma,  ma,  la,  la,  la,  <fcc.,  or  what  a  charm  such  repetition  has  for 
them." 

And  so  the  child  in  the  cradle  is  to  have  no  rest  from  elementary 
teaching ;  the  cradle  songs  sung  to  it  are  to  consist  of  such  delightful 
bawling  and  bleating  as  ba,  ba,  ba,  &c.,  which  might  well  scare  away 
the  child's  guardian  angels. 

As  soon  as  the  child  begins  to  talk,  it  is  to  "repeat  some  sequences 
of  these  sounds  every  day  ;"  then  follow  exercises  in  spelling. 

II.  "LESSONS  IN  WORDS,  or  rather,  LESSONS  IN  NAMES." — Ac- 
cording to  Pestalozzi,   "  all  the  most  important  objects  in  the  world 
are  brought  under  the  notice  of  the  child  in  the  Book  for  Mothers." 

"  Lessons  in  names  consist  in  giving  the  children  lists  of  the  names 
of  the  most  important  objects  in  all  three  kingdoms  of  nature,  in  his- 
tory, in  geography,  and  in  the  pursuits  and  relations  of  mankind. 
These  lists  of  words  are  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  child,  merely  as 
exercises  in  learning  to  read,  immediately  after  he  has  gone  through 
his  spelling  book ;  and  experience  has  shown  me  that  it  is  possible 
to  make  the  children  so  thoroughly  acquainted  with  these  lists  of 
words,  that  they  shall  be  able  to  repeat  them  from  memory,  merely 
in  the  time  that  is  required  to  perfect  them  in  reading :  the  gain  of 
what  at  this  age  is  so  complete  a  knowledge  of  lists  of  names  so  va- 
rious and  comprehensive,  is  immeasurable,  in  facilitating  the  subsequent 
instruction  of  the  children." 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  f9 

Here  again  it  is  not  even  remotely  hinted  that  the  children  ought 
to  know  the  things  named ;  words,  mere  words,  are  put  in  the  place 
of  observation. 

3.  LESSONS  IN  LANGUAGE. — The  highest  aim  of  language,  accord- 
ing to  Pestalozzi's  idea,  is  to  lead  us  from  dim  perceptions  to  clear 
notions,  and  that  by  the  following  process  : — 

1.  "We  acquire  a  general  knowledge  of  an  object,  and  name  it  as 
unity,  as  an  object. 

2.  We  gradually  become  conscious  of  its  distinguishing  qualities, 
and  learn  how  to  name  them. 

3.  We  receive  through  language  the  power  of  designating  these 
qualities   of  the   objects   more   precisely   by   means   of  verbs   and 
adverbs." 

The  first  step  in  this  process  is,  as  we  have  seen,  the  object  of  the 
Pestalozzian  lessons  in  names ;  but,  when  viewed  more  closely,  the 
lessons  are  found  to  consist,  not  in  the  naming  of  objects  arising  out 
of  knowing  them,  but  in  the  names  for  their  own  sake. 

In  reference  to  the  second  operation,  when  Pestalozzi  writes  on  the 
black-board  the  word  "eel,"  and  adds  the  qualities,  "slippery,  worm- 
shaped,  thick-skinned,"  the  children  by  no  means  become  conscious 
of  the  distinguishing  qualities  of  an  eel,  and  learn  to  name  them, 
through  observing  an  eel ;  they  rather  get  adjectives  to  the  noun 
"  eel."  Of  the  process  by  which  these  adjectives  arise  from  the  obser- 
vation of  the  qualities  which  they  express,  there  is  again  nothing  said. 

This  neglect  of  observation  is  still  more  striking,  when  Pestalozzi, 
further  on,  classifies  what  is  to  be  learned  under  the  following  heads : 

1.  Geography.  3.  Physics.  5.  Physiology. 

2.  History.  4.  Natural  History. 

Each  of  these  five  heads  he  divides  again  into  forty  subdivisions,  so 
that  he  makes  two  hundred  subdivisions.  He  now  proceeds  to  give 
lists  of  words  in  all  these  subjects  in  alphabetical  order,  which 
lists  are  to  be  impressed  upon  the  childrens'  memories,  "  till  it  is  im- 
possible they  should  be  forgotten."  Afterward,  this  alphabetical 
nomenclature  is  to  be  transformed  into  a  "scientific"  one.  "  I  do  not 
know,  (says  Pestalozzi,)  whether  it  is  necessary  to  illustrate  the  matter 
further  by  an  example ;  it  appears  to  me  almost  superfluous :  never- 
theless, I  will  do  so,  on  account  of  the  novelty  of  form.  E.  0.  One 
of  the  subdivisions  of  Europe  is  Germany :  the  child  is  first  of  all 
made  well  acquainted  with  the  division  of  Germany  into  ten  circles, 
go  that  he  shall  not  be  able  to  forget  it ;  then  the  names  of  the  towns 
of  Germany  are  placed  before  him,  at  first  in  mere  alphabetical  order 
for  him  to  read,  but  each  of  these  towns  is  previously  marked  with 


g0  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

the  number  of  the  circle  in  which  it  lies.  As  soon  as  the  child  can 
read  the  names  of  the  towns  fluently,  he  is  taught  the  connection  of 
the  numbers  with  the  subdivisions  of  the  main  heads,  and  in  a  few 
hours  he  is  able  to  determine  the  place  of  the  entire  number  of  Ger- 
man towns  in  these  subdivisions.  For  example,  suppose  the  names 
of  the  following  places  in  Germany  are  set  before  him,  marked  by 
numbers : — 


Aachan,  (Aix-la-Cha- 
pelle,)  8. 
Aalen,  3. 
Abenberg,  4. 
Aberthan,  11. 
Acken,  10. 
Adersbach,  11. 
Agler,  1. 
Ahrbergen,  10. 
Aigremont,  8. 
Ala,  1. 

Allenbach,  5. 
Allendorf,  5. 
Allersperg,  2. 
Alschaufen,  3. 
Alsleben,  10. 
Altbunzlau,  11. 
Altena,  8. 
Altenau,  10. 
Altenberg,  9. 
Altenburg,  9. 

Altensalza,  10. 
Altkirchen,  8. 
Altona,  10. 
Altorf,  1. 
Altranstadt,  9. 
Altwasser,  13. 
Alkerdissen,  8. 
Amberg,  2. 
Ambras,  1. 
Amoneburg,  6. 
Andernach,  6. 

He  reads  them  all  in  the  following  manner : — 

Aachen  lies  in  the  Westphalian  circle ; 

Abenberg  in  the  Franconian  circle ; 

Acken  in  the  Lower  Saxony  circle ;  and  so  on. 

In  this  manner  the  child  is  evidently  enabled,  at  first  sight  of  the 
number  or  mark  referring  to  the  subdivisions  of  the  main  head,  to 
determine  the  place  of  each  word  of  the  list  in  the  scientific  classifi- 
cation of  the  subject,  and  thus,  as  I  before  said,  to  change  the  alpha- 
betical into  a  scientific  nomenclature." 

It  is  quite  unnecessary  to  give  a  refutation  of  these  views.* 

Further  on  in  the  book,  there  follow  some  directions  "how  to  ex- 
plain more  fully  to  the  pupil  the  nature,  qualities,  and  functions  of  all 
the  objects  with  which  the  lessons  in  names  have  made  him  ac- 
quainted, and  which  have  already  been  explained  to  him,  to  a  certain 
extent,  by  placing  their  qualities  side  by  side  with  their  names."  For 
this  purpose,  the  mother  is  to  read  to  the  child  certain  sentences,  and 
the  child  is  to  repeat  them  after  her.  Many  of  these  sentences  would 
be  quite  unintelligible  to  a  child ;  for  instance,  "  The  creditor  desires 
payment,"  "  The  right  must  be  maintained."  They  are  mere  exercises 
in  reading,  not  based  in  the  slightest  degree  on  observation. 

We  have  seen  that  Pestalozzi  fixed  his  attention  chiefly  on  the 
principle  that  instruction  must  be  based  on  observation,  out  of  which 
the  clear  idea  is  at  last  developed.  He  says  that  we  are  dazzled  by 
the  charm  of  a  language,  "which  we  speak  without  having  any  real 

*  Observe,  too,  how  Pestalozzi  has  taken  the  names  of  any  obscure  places  that  occurred 
to  him  at  the  moment,  such  as  Aberthan,  Ala,  &c.  Out  of  the  31  places  whose  names  are 
given,  five  at  most  would  deserve  to  be  included  in  a  school  geography.  Not  a  word  is  said 
about  maps. 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  Q1 

knowledge  of  the  ideas  conveyed  by  the  words  which  we  allow  to  run 
through  our  mouths.''  He  combats  "  all  scientific  teaching  which  is 
analyzed,  explained,  and  dictated  by  men  who  have  not  learnt  to 
think  and  speak  in  harmony  with  the  laws  of  nature,"  whose  "  defi- 
nitions must  be  conjured  into  the  soul  like  a  deus  ex  machina,  or 
must  be  blown  into  the  ears  as  by  stage-prompters ;"  the  effect  of 
which  is  that  men  "  sink  into  a  miserable  mode  of  education,  fit  only  for 
forming  play-actors."  He  speaks  with  great  warmth  against  "defini- 
tions not  founded  on  observation."  "  A  definition,  (he  says,)  is  the 
simplest  expression  of  clear  ideas,  but  for  the  child  it  contains  truth 
only  in  so  far  as  he  has  a  clear  and  comprehensive  view  of  the 
groundwork  of  observation  on  which  these  ideas  are  based ;  whenever 
he  is  left  without  the  greatest  clearness  in  the  observation  of  a  natural 
object  which  has  been  defined  to  him,  he  only  learns  to  play  with 
words  like  so  many  counters,  deceives  himself,  and  places  a  blind  be- 
lief in  sounds  which  will  convey  to  him  no  idea,  nor  give  rise  to  any 
other  thought,  except  just  this,  that  he  has  uttered  certain  sounds.* 
Hinc  illce  lacrymce. 

These  excellent  principles  can  not  receive  too  much  attention ;  but 
if  Pestalozzi's  own  method  of  instruction  be  squared  by  them,  it  will 
be  found  to  run  quite  counter  to  them.  He  begins,  not  with  obser- 
vations, but  with  words ;  with  him,  substantives  stand  in  the  place 
of  the  observation  of  objects,  adjectives  in  the  place  of  the  observa- 
tion of  the  properties  of  objects.  His  polemic  against  empty  word- 
wisdom  hits  therefore  his  own  method  of  instruction.  Fichte  says 
very  truly  in  regard  to  Pestalozzi's  idea :  "  In  the  field  of  objective 
knowledge,  which  relates  to  external  objects,  the  acquaintance  with 
the  literal  sign  that  represents  the  clearness  and  definiteness  of  the 
knowledge,  adds  nothing  whatever  for  the  student  himself;  it  only 
heightens  the  value  of  the  knowledge  with  reference,  to  its  communi- 
cation to  others,  which  is  a  totally  different  matter.  The  clearness 
of  such  knowledge  can  result  only  from  observation,  and  that  which 
we  can  at  pleasure  reproduce  in  all  its  parts,  just  as  it  really  is,  in  the 
imagination,  is  perfectly  known,  whether  we  have  a  word  for  it  or  not. 

We  are  even  of  the  opinion  that  this  perfection  of  observation 

*  Pestaloz/.i  also  shows  briefly  and  truly  that  none  but  those  who  have  a  thorough  knowl- 
edge of  a  subject  can  possibly  give  a  real  explanation  of  it  in  words.  "  If  I  have  not  a  clear 
perception  of  a  thing,"  he  says,  "  I  can  not  say  with  certainty  what  its  attributes  are,  much 
less  what  it  is ;  I  can  not  even  describe  it,  much  less  define  it.  If  then  a  third  person  puts 
into  my  mouth  the  words  by  means  of  which  some  other  person,  who  had  a  clear  concep- 
tion of  the  thing,  makes  it  intelligible  to  people  of  his  own  stamp,  it  is  not  on  this  account 
any  clearer  to  me  ;  but  it  is  clear  to  the  other  person  and  not  to  me  so  long  as  the  words  of 
this  person  are  not  for  me  what  they  arc  for  him :  the  definite  expression  of  the  fiill 
clearness  of  an  idea." 

6 


82  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

should  precede  the  acquaintance  with  the  literal  sign,  and  that  the 
opposite  way  leads  directly  to  that  world  of  fog  and  shadows,  and  to 
that  early  use  of  the  tongue,  both  of  which  are  so  justly  hateful  to 
Pestalozzi ;  nay  even,  that  he  who  is  only  concerned  to  know  the  word 
at  the  earliest  possible  moment,  and  who  deems  his  knowledge  com- 
plete so  soon  as  he  knows  it,  lives  precisely  in  that  world  of  fog,  and 
is  only  concerned  for  its  extension." 

We  should  have  expected  from  Pestalozzi  some  directions,  first,  how 
to  exercise  the  senses  of  children,  and  cultivate  in  them  the  power  of 
rapidly  arriving  at  clear  conceptions  of  objects ;  second,  how  we  should 
teach  them  to  express  in  language  the  impressions  of  their  senses — to 
translate  their  mute  observations  into  words. 

But  Pestalozzi  does  give  some  hints,  particularly  as  to  the  method 
in  which  instruction  in  natural  history  should  be  imparted.  We  must 
not  allow  the  child  to  go  into  the  woods  and  meadows,  in  order  to 
become  acquainted  with  trees  and  plants.  "  Trees  and  plants,  (he 
says,)  do  not  there  stand  in  the  order  best  adapted  to  make  the 
character  of  each  class  apparent,  and  to  prepare  the  mind  by  the  first 
impressions  of  the  objects  for  a  general  acquaintance  with  this  de- 
partment of  science.  It  would  make  me  too  far  away  from  my  pur- 
pose, were  I  to  refute  this  excessive  pedantry  of  method,  (with  the 
best  will  in  the  world,  I  can  find  no  better  word  for  it,)  against  which 
every  mind  that  has  any  degree  of  freshness,  and  is  alive  to  the 
beauties  of  nature,  will  at  once  rise  up  in  condemnation. 

But,  though  nothing  further  is  said,  in  the  work  before  us,  on  the 
education  of  the  senses,  and  the  instruction  in  language  connected 
therewith,  Pestalozzi  refers  us  to  his  "  Book  for  Mothers,"  for  more 
on  these  points.  His  principle,  that  the  learning  of  a  child  must  com- 
mence with  what  lies  near  to  it,  appears  to  have  led  him  to  the  idea, 
that  no  natural  object  lay  nearer -to  a  child  than  its  own  body,  and 
that  therefore  it  should  commence  by  observing  that.  The  Book  for 
Mothers  describes  the  body,  with  all  its  limbs  and  parts  of  limbs, 
down  to  the  minutest  joints.  Few  persons,  (I  do  not  speak  of  sur- 
geons,) are  so  well  acquainted  with  the  structure  of  the  body  as  the 
child  is  to  be  made.  Few  people  will  understand,  for  instance,  the 
following  description :  "  The  middle  bones  of  the  index  finger  are 
placed  outside,  on  the  middle  joints  of  the  index  finger,  between  the 
back  and  middle  members  of  the  index  finger,"  &c.  The  mother  is 
to  go  through  the  book,  word  for  word,  with  the  child,  making 
constant  reference  to  the  child's  own  body. 

It  was  a  great  mistake  on  the  part  of  Pestalozzi,  to  select  the 
child's  body  as  the  first  object  on  which  it  should  exercise  its  faculties 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  83 

of  sight  and  speech,  and,  generally,  the  so-called  exercises  in  observa- 
tion employed  by  Pestalozzi  and  his  school,  ought  properly  to  be  re- 
garded as  exercises  in  reading,  in  which  the  object  is  far  more  to 
make  the  children  acquainted  with  words  and  sentences  than  to  give 
them  distinct  and  lasting  impressions,  and  a  real  knowledge  of  the 
thing  spoken  of.  He  who  yesterday  saw  a  man,  with  whose  image 
he  was  so  strongly  impressed  that  he  can  to-day  depict  it  from  his 
inward  conception — he  who  to-day  can  correctly  sing  from  memory 
a  melody  which  he  heard  yesterday — he  who  yesterday  smelt  vine- 
gar, and  to-day  feels  the  water  gather  in  his  mouth  at  the  recollection 
of  the  smell — gives  proof  of  his  observation  by  the  conception 
which  he  has  formed,  even  though  he  does  not  translate  that  concep- 
tion into  words.  The  generality  of  the  exercises  of  Pestalozzi  and 
his  followers  never  produced  such  an  imagination  of  perceptions  as 
this. 

Toward  the  conclusion  of  the  work,  Pestalozzi  asks  himself:  "How 
does  the  question  of  religion  stand  with  relation  to  the  principles 
which  I  have  adopted  as  true  in  regard  to  the  development  of  the 
human  race  in  general  ?" 

It  is  difficult  to  follow  him  in  his  answer  to  this  question.  Every 
thing  that  is  lofty  in  man  is  founded,  according  to  him,  in  the  rela- 
tionship which  subsists  between  the  infant  and  its  mother.  The  feel- 
ings of  gratitude,  confidence  and  love  in  the  child  toward  the  mother 
gradually  unfold  themselves,  and  are,  at  a  later  period,  transferred  by 
the  child,  on  the  admonition  of  the  mother,  to  God.  This,  with 
Pestalozzi,  is  the  only  way  of  training  the  child  in  religion.  It  pre- 
supposes a  mother  pure  as  an  angel,  and  a  child  originally  quite  in- 
nocent. The  mother  is  also,  like  a  saint,  to  take  the  child  under  her 
wings,  when  it  grows  up  and  is  enticed  to  evil  by  the  world,  which  is 
not  innocent,  "  as  God  first  created  it."  According  to  this  view, 
motherless  orphans  must  remain  entirely  without  religious  training. 
There  is  scarcely  a  word  about  the  father ;  just  once  he  is  mentioned, 
and  then  it  is  said  that  he  is  "  tied  to  his  workshop,"  and  can  not  give 
up  his  time  to  the  child. 

In  short,  the  mother  is  represented  as  the  mediator  between  God 
and  the  child.  But  not  once  is  it  mentioned  that  she  herself  needs  a 
mediator ;  not  once  in  the  whole  book  does  the  name  of  Christ  occur. 
It  is  nowhere  said  that  the  mother  is  a  Christian  mother,  a  member 
of  the  church,  and  that  she  teaches  the  child  what  she,  as  a  member 
of  the  church,  has  learnt.  Holy  writ  is  ignored  ;  the  mother  draws 
her  theology  out  of  her  own  heart.  There  pervades  this  work  there- 
fore a  decided  alienation  from  Christ.  But  we  shall  afterward  see 


g4  LIFE  AND  EPl  STALOZZI. 

that  it  would  be  unjust  to  measure  Festalo.  en  in- 

struction by  the  untenable  theory  brought  for  inters 

of  this  work. 

Having  thus  considered  the  contents  of  this  book,  whicV. 
ten  and  had  its  origin  in  Burgdorf,  which  contains  fundamental  edu- 
cational principles  of  the  highest  value  and  importance,  side  b\ 
with  the  most  glaring  educational  blunders  and  absurdities,  it  will  be 
of  the  greatest  interest  to  hear  how  Pestalozzi  performed  1 
a  teacher,  and  as  the  director  of  his  institution,  in  Burgdorf.  Wo 
shall  obtain  information  on  this  point  from  a  small  but  in  muiy 
respects  highly  interesting  and  valuable  pamphlet,  entitled  **A  Short 
Sketch  of  my  Educational  Life,  by  John  Ramsauer.1'*  The  writer, 
who  was  the  son  of  a  tradesman,  and  was  born  in  1790  at  llerissu  in 
the  Swiss  canton  of  Appenzell,  migrated  thence  in  1800,  along  with 
forty-four  other  children  from  ten  to  fourteen  years  of  age,  at  a  time 
when  several  cantons,  Appenzell  among  the  rest,  had  been  totally 
desolated  in  consequence  of  the  French  revolution;  and  he  came 
thus  to  Schleumen,  not  far  from  Burgdorf.  While  at  Schleumen,  he 
attended  the  lower  burgh  school  of  Burgdorf,  in  which,  as  already 
stated,  Pestalozzi  taught  He  gives  the  following  account  of  Pesta- 
lozzTs  teaching : — 

"I  got  about  as  much  regular  schooling  as  the  other  scholars,  namely 
at  all ;  but  his,  (Pestalozzf  s,)  sacred  zeal,  his  devoted  love,  which  caused  him 
to  be  entirely  unmindful  of  hiiuselC  his  serious  and  depressed  state  of  mind. 
which  struck  even  the  children,  made  the  deepest  impression  on  me,  and  knit 
my  childlike  and  grateful  heart  to  his  forever. 

*It  is  impossible  to  give  a  clear  picture  of  this  school  as  a  whole;  all  that  I 
can  do  is  to  sketch  a  few  partial  views. 

.tloxzfs  intention  was  that  all  the  instruction  given  in  this  sc 
start  from  form,  number,  and   Language,  and  should  have  a  constan' 
ence  to  these  elements.    There  was  no  regular  plan  in  existence,  neiti 
there  a  time-tablet  for  which  reason  Pestalozzi  did  not  tie  himself  down  to  any 
particular  hours,  but  generally  went  on  with  the  same  subject  for  two  or  three 
hours  together.    There  were  about  sixty  of  us,  boys  and  girls,  of  agot 
from  eight  to  fifteen  years;  the  school-hours  were  from  8  till  11  in  the  morning, 
and  from  2  to  4  in  the  afternoon.    The  instruction  which  we  received  « 
tirvly  limited  to  drawing,  ciphering,  and  exercises  in  language,     "We  neither 
read  nor  wrote,  and  accordingly  we  had  neither  reading  • 

e  required  to  commit  to  memory  any  thing  secular  or  sacred. 

.he  drawing,  we  had  neither  copies  to  draw  from  nor  directions  what  to 
draw,  but  only  crayons  and  boards;  and  we  were  told  to  draw  "what  wo 
liked  "  during  the  time  that  Pestalozzi  was  reading  aloud  i  out  natural 

history  gee  in  language.)    But  we  did  not  know  what  to  dra  \\ 

so  it  happened  that  some  drew  men  and  women,  some  houses,  and  c  t 

arabesques,  or  whatever  else  came  into  their  heads.    Pestakaz: 
looked  to  see  what  we  had  drawn,  or  rather  scribbled ;  but  the  clothes  of  all  the 
•cholars.  especially  the  sleeves  and  elbows,  gave  unmistakable  evidence  that 
had  been  making  due  use  of  their  crayons, 

the   ciphering,  we  had   between  every  two  scholars  a  small  table 

'  "      -.1  Pestalorxi  himself  speaks  of  his  teaching,  he  is  too  apt  to  mix  up  what  be  inteuded 
with  what  he  rally  effected. 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SVSTLM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  Q5 

i  on  mill-board,  on  which  in  quadrangular  fields  were  marked  clot-;,  which 

j  to  count,  to  :i<M   together,  to  subtract,  to   multiply,  and  divide  by  one 

aiioti/.-r.      It  v,;is  out  of  these  exercises  that   Kriisi  and  Jiuss  constructed,  first, 

the  Unity  Table,  and    afterward  th«:  J-'raction    Tables.      But,  an    J'o.-.talox/j    only 

allowed  the  scholar-;  to  70  over  ;ind  to  rep<-at  the  exercises  in  their  tun. 

<  I  Mentioned  them    nor  sot  them    tasks,  tho.-e  which  were  othcr- 

.••ry  good,  remained  without  any  groat   utility.      lie  h;id  riot  sufficient  pa- 

ti'-nee  to  a.llow  thin/-  to  he  gone  over  again,  or  to  put  questions;  and  in  his 

enormous  x.e;i,l  (or  the  instruction  of  the  whole  .school,  ho  seemed  not  to  concern 

himself  in  the  dig  ee  for  the  individual  scholar. 

The  b<-s:t  things  we   had  with  him    wore  the  exorcises  in  language,  at  least 

.vhieh  he  gave  us  on  the  paper-hangings  of  the  school-room,  and  which 

U-ITC  real  exercuei  in  observation.     Thi-s<-  hangings  were  very  old  and  a  good 

d<-al  torn,  and  before  these  \vo  hud  freijuontly  to  stand  for  two  or  three  hours 

together,  and   «ay  what  we  observed  in   respect  to  the  form,  number,  position 

and  color  of  the  figures   painted  on   thorn,  and   the  holes  torn  in  them,  and  to 

,  what  wo  observed  in  sentences  gradually  increasing  in  length.     On 

such  occasions,  he  would  say:   "Boys,  what  do  you  see?"     (He  never  named 

the  girJy.j 

-  r.  A  hole,  (or  rent,)  in  the  wainscoat. 
Pegtaloati.  Very  good.     Now  repeat  after  me: — 
I  see  a  hole  in  the  wainscoat 
I  see  a  long  hole  in  the  wainscoat. 
Through  the  hole  I  see  the  wall. 
Through  the  long  narrow  hole  I  see  the  wall 
Petital'i;'.:'.:,   Repeat  after  me: — 

•  figures  on  the  paper-hangings. 
I  see  blade  figures  on  the  paper-hangings. 
I  see  round  black  figures  on  the  paper-hangings. 
I  see  a  square  yellow  figure  on  the  paper-hangings. 

Lei  the  square  yellow  figure,  I  see  a  black  round  figure. 
The  .square  figure  is  joined  to  the  round  one  by  a  thick  black  stroke. 
Arid  so  on. 

Of  less  utility  were  those  exercises  in  language  which  he  took  from  natural 
history,  and  in  which  wo  had  to  repeat  after  him,  and  at  the  same  time  to  draw, 
as  L  have  already  mentioned.  He  would  say: — 

Amphibious  animals.  Crawling  amphibious  animals. 

Creeping  amphibious  animals. 

Monkeys.  Long-tailed  monkeys. 

Short-tailed  monkeys. 
And  so  on. 

\\'<-  did  not  understand  a  word  of  this,  for  not  a  word  was  explained,  and  it 
was  all  spoken  in  such  a  sing-song  tone,  and  so  rapidly  and  indistinctly,  that  it 
would  have  been  a  wonder  if  any  one  had  und< -rsiood  any  tiling  of  it,  and  had 
learnt  any  thing  from  it;  besides,  Festal  oz/i  cried  out  so  dreadfully  loud  and  so 
continuously,  that  he  could  not  hear  us  repeat  after  him,  the  less  so  as  he  never 
waited  for  us  when  he  had  read  out  a  sentence,  but  went  on  without  intermis- 
sion arid  read  off  a  whole  page  at  once.  What  he  thus  read  out  was  drawn  up 
on  a  half-sheet  of  large-sized  mill-board,  and  our  repetition  consisted  for  the 
most  part  in  saying  the  last  word  or  syllable  of  each  phrase,  thus  "monkeys — mon- 
keys," or  ''keys — keys."  There  was  never  any  questioning  or  recapitulation. 

As  Pestalozzi  in  his  zeal,  did  not  tie  himself  to  any  particular  time,  we  gene- 
rally went  on  till  eleven  o'clock  with  whatever  he  had  commenced  at  eight,  and 
by  ten  o'clock  he  was  always  tired  and  hoarse.  We  knew  when  it  was  eleven 
by  the  noise  of  other  school  children  in  the  street,  and  then  usually  we  all  ran 
out  without  bidding  good-bye. 

Allhough    i'<-ta!o//,i   had  at  all  times  strictly  prohibited  his  assistants  from 
using  any  kind  of  corporal    punishment,  yet  he  by  no  means  dispensed  with  it 
hims"lf,  but  very  often  d>-alt  out  boxes  «n  the  ears  right  and  left.     But  most  of 
the  scholars  rendered  hi.s   life  very  unhappy,  so  much  so  that  1  felt  a  real  sym- 
pathy for  him,  and  kept  myself  all  tin;  nioiv  quiot.     This  he  soon  obsem-d.  and 
many  a  time  lie  took  me   for  a  walk   at  el.-ven  o'clock,  for  in  fine  wear 
went  every  day  to  the  banks  of  the  river  Krnrne,  and  for  recreation  and  Bl 
merit  looked  for  different  kinds  of  stones.     I  had  to  take  part  in  this  occupatioa 


36  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

myself,  although  it  appeared  to  me  a  strange  one,  seeing  that  millions  of  stones 
lay  there,  and  I  did  not  know  which  to  search  for.  He  himself  was  acquainted 
with  only  a  few  kinds,  but  nevertheless  he  dragged  along  home  from  this  place 
every  day  with  his  pocket  and  his  pocket  handkerchief  full  of  stones,  though 
after  they  were  deposited  at  home,  they  were  never  looked  at  again.  He  re- 
tained this  fancy  throughout  his  life.  It  was  not  an  easy  thing  to  lind  a  single 
entire  pocket  handkerchief  in  the  whole  of  the  institution  at  Burgdorf,  for  all 
of  them  had  been  torn  with  carrying  stones. 

There  is  one  thing  which,  though  indeed  unimportant,  I  must  not  forget  to 
mention.  The  first  time  that  I  was  taken  in  to  Pestalozzi's  school  he  cordially 
welcomed  and  kissed  me,  then  he  quickly  assigned  me  a  place,  and  the  whole 
morning  did  not  speak  another  word  to  me,  but  kept  on  reading  out  sentences 
without  halting  for  a  moment.  As  I  did  not  understand  a  bit  of  what  was 
going  on,  when  I  heard  the  word  "  monkey,  monkey,"  come  every  time  at  the 
end  of  a  sentence,  and  as  Pestalozzi,  who  was  very  ugly,  ran  about  the  room 
as  though  he  was  wild,  without  a  coat  and  without  a  neck-cloth,  his  long  shirt- 
sleeves hanging  down  over  his  arms  and  hands,  which  swung  negligently  about, 
I  was  seized  with  real  terror,  and  might  soon  have  believed  that  he  himself 
was  a  monkey.  During  the  first  few  days  too,  I  was  all  the  more  afraid  of  him, 
as  he  had,  on  my  arrival,  given  me  a  kiss  with  his  strong,  prickly  beard,  the 
first  kiss  which  I  remembered  having  received  in  my  life. 

Ramsauer  does  not  relate  so  much  about  the  instruction  given  by 
the  other  teachers.  Among  the  fruits  of  their  instruction  were  two 
of  the  three  elementary  works  which  appeared  in  1803,  under  Pesta- 
lozzi's  name:  (1.)  "The  ABC  of  Observation,  or  Lessons  on  the 
Relations  of  Size,"  (2.)  "Lessons  on  the  Relations  of  Number."  (3.) 
The  third  elementary  work  alone  was  written  by  Pestalozzi  himself; 
it  is  the  one  already  mentioned,  the  "Book  for  Mothers,  or  Guide 
for  Mothers  in  teaching  their  children  to  observe  and  speak." 

The  institution  at  Burgdorf  attracted  more  and  more  notice ;  people 
came  from  a  distance  to  visit  it,  induced  particularly  by  Pestalozzi's 
work,  "  How  Gertrude  teaches  her  children."  M.  Decan  Ith,  who  was 
sent  by  the  Helvetian  government  in  1802,  to  examine  the  institution, 
made  a  very  favorable  report  on  it,  in  consequence  of  which  the 
government  recognized  it  as  a  public  institution,  and  granted  small 
salaries  to  the  teachers  out  of  the  public  funds. 

But  that  government  was  dissolved  by  Napoleon  the  very  next 
year,  and  the  constitution  of  the  cantoris  restored.  The  Bernese 
government  now  fixed  on  the  castle  of  Burgdorf,  as  the  seat  of  one 
of  the  chief  magistrates  of  the  canton ;  arid  Pestalozzi  had  to  clear 
out  of  it,  on  the  22d  of  August,  1804. 

In  1802,  during  Pestalozzi's  stay  at  Burgdorf,  Napoleon  required 
the  Swiss  people  to  send  a  deputation  to  him  at  Paris.  Two  districts 
chose  Pestalozzi  as  a  deputy.  Before  his  departure,  he  published  a 
pamphlet,  entitled  "  Views  on  the  Objects  to  which  the  Legislature 
of  Helvetia  has  to  direct  its  attention."  He  put  a  memorandum  on 
the  wants  of  Switzerland  into  the  hands  of  the  First  Consul,  who 
paid  as  little  attention  to  it  as  he  did  to  Pestalozzi's  educational 
efforts,  declaring  that  he  could  not  mix  himself  up  with  the  teaching 
of  the  ABC. 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  gf 

The  Bernese  government  gave  up  the  monastery  of  Buchsee  to 
Pestalozzi  for  his  institution,  and  had  the  building  properly  arranged 
for  him.  Close  by  Buchsee  lies  the  estate  of  Hofwyl,  where  Fellen- 
berg  resided,  and  to  whom  the  teachers  gave  the  principal  direction  of 
the  institution,  "  not  without  my  consent,"  says  Pestalozzi,  "  but  to 
my  profound  mortification." 

Notwithstanding,  Pestalozzi  allows  Fellenberg  to  have  possessed  in 
a  high  degree  the  talent  of  governing.  In  Fellenberg  the  intellect 
predominated,  as  in  Pestalozzi  the  feelings ;  in  the  institution  at 
Buchsee,  therefore,  "  that  love  and  warmth  was  missing  which,  inspir- 
ing all  who  came  within  its  influence,  rendered  every  one  at  Burg- 
dorf  so  happy  and  cheerful :  at  Buchsee  every  thing  was,  in  this 
respect,  totally  different.  Still  Buchsee  had  this  advantage,  that  in  it 
more  order  prevailed,  and  more  was  learned  than  at  Burgdorf." 

Pestalozzi  perceived  that  his  institution  would  not  become  inde- 
pendent of  Fellenberg,  so  long  as  it  should  remain  at  Buchsee,  and 
he  gladly  accepted,  therefore,  a  highly  advantageous  proposal  on  the 
part  of  the  inhabitants  of  Yverdun,  that  he  should  remove  his  insti- 
tution to  their  town.  He  repaired  thither,  with  some  of  his  teachers 
and  eight  pupils ;  half  a  year  later,  the  remaining  teachers  followed, 
having,  as  Pestalozzi  remarks,  soon  found  the  government  of  Fellen- 
berg far  more  distasteful  than  the  want  of  government,  under  him, 
had  ever  been  to  them. 

We  now  enter  on  a  period  when  Pestalozzi  and  his  institution  ac- 
quired a  European  reputation,  when  Pestalozzian  teachers  had  schools 
in  Madrid,  Naples,  and  St.  Petersburg,  when  the  emperor  of  Russia 
gave  the  venerable  old  man  a  personal  proof  of  his  favor  and  esteem, 
and  when  Fichte  saw  in  Pestalozzi  and  his  labors  the  commencement 
of  a  renovation,  of  humanity. 

But  to  write  the  history  of  this  period  is  a  task  of  unusual  difficul- 
ty. On  one  side  stand  extravagant  admirers  of  Pestalozzi,  on  the  oth- 
er bitter  censurers;  a  closer  examination  shows  us  that  both  are 
right,  and  both  wrong.  A  fearful  dissension  arises,  in  the  institution 
itself,  among  the  teachers;  at  the  head  of  the  two  parties  stand 
Niederer  and  Schmid,  who  abuse  each  other  in  a  manner  unheard  of. 
With  which  party  shall  we  side  ;  or  shall  we  side  with  neither,  or 
with  both  ? 

If  we  ask  to  which  party  Pestalozzi  inclined,  or  whether  he  held 
himself  above  the  parties,  and  then  go  entirely  according  to  his  judg- 
ment, our  embarrassment  will  only  be  increased.  He  pronounced  a 
very  different  opinion  on  the  same  man  at  different  times :  at  one  time 
he  saw  in  him  a  helping  angel,  before  whom  he  humbled  himself 


88  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

more  than  was  seemly,  and  from  whom  he  expected  every  benefit  to 
his  institution  ;  at  another  time,  he  saw  in  him  an  almost  fiendish 
being,  who  was  only  bent  on  ruining  the  institution. 

If  any  fancy  that  they  have  a-  sure  source  of  information  in  the 
account  drawn  up  by  Pestalozzi  and  Nieder,  and  published  in  1807, 
namely,  the  "  Report  on  the  State  of  the  Pestalozzian  Institution,  ad- 
dressed to  the  Parents  of  the  Pupils  and  to  the  Public ;"  they  will  be 
undeceived  by  some  remarks  which  Pestalozzi  himself  added  to  that 
report  at  a  later  period,  in  the  collected  edition  of  his  works,  but  still 
more  so  in,  "  The  Fortunes  of  my  Life."  This  work  is  altogether  at 
variance  with  those  which  give  a  high  degree  of  praise  to  the  Pesta- 
lozzian Institution,  in  its  former  condition.  From  the  year  in  which 
the  dispute  between  Niederer  and  Schmid,  broke  out,  (1810,)  most 
of  those  who  give  any  information  on  the  subject  range  themselves  on 
Niederer's  side ;  while  Pestalozzi  himself,  from  the  year  1815  till  his 
death,  holds  unchangeably  with  Schmid. 

I  should  despair  of  ever  being  able  to  thread  my  way  in  this  laby- 
rinth with  any  degree  of  certainty,  were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  I  re- 
sided some  time  in  the  institution,  namely,  from  October,  1809,  till  May? 
1810,  and  there  became  more  intimately  acquainted  with  persons  and 
circumstances  than  I  could  otherwise  have  been. 

A  friend,  (Rudolph  von  Przystanowski,)  accompanied  me  to  Yver- 
dun,  where  we  arrived  toward  the  end  of  October.  It  was  in  the 
evening  of  a  cold  rainy  day  that  we  alighted  at  the  hotel  called  the 
Red  House.  The  next  morning  we  went  to  the  old  castle,  built  by 
Charles  the  Bold,  which  with  its  four  great  round  towers  incloses 
a  courtyard.  Here  we  met  a  multitude  of  boys  ;  we  were  conducted 
to  Pestalozzi.  He  was  dressed  in  the  most  negligent  manner:  he 
had  on  an  old  grey  overcoat,  no  waistcoat,  a  pair  of  breeches,  and 
stockings  hanging  down  over  his  slippers  ;  his  coarse  bushy  black  hair 
uncombed  and  frightful.  His  brow  was  deeply  furrowed,  his  dark 
brown  eyes  were  now  soft  and  mild,  now  full  of  fire.  You  hardly 
noticed  that  the  old  man,  so  full  of  geniality,  was  ugly  ;  you  read  in 
his  singular  features  long  continued  suffering  and  great  hopes. 

Soon  after,  we  saw  Niederer,*  who  gave  me  the  impression  of  a 
young  Roman  Catholic  priest ;  Kriisi,*  who  was  somewhat  corpu- 
lent, fair,  blue-eyed,  mild  and  benevolent ;  and  Schmid,*  who  was,  if 
possible,  more  cynical  in  his  dress  than  Pestalozzi,  with  sharp  features 
and  eyes  like  those  of  a  bird  of  prey. 

At  that  time  137  pupils,  of  ages  varying  from  six  to  seventeen 

*  A  biographical  sketch  of  Niederer,  Kriisi,  and  Schmid,  will  be  given  at  the  close  of  the 
life  of  Pestalozzi.— ED. 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  gg 

years,  lived  in  the  institution ;  28  lodged  in  the  town,  but  dined  in 
the  institution.  There  were  in  all,  therefore,  165  pupils.  Among 
them  there  were  78  Swiss  ;  the  rest  were  Germans,  French,  Russians, 
Italians,  Spaniards,  and  Americans.  Fifteen  teachers  resided  in  the 
institution,  nine  of  whom  were  Swiss  teachers,  who  had  been  educated 
there.  Besides  these,  there  were  32  persons  who  were  studying  the 
method :  seven  of  them  were  natives  of  Switzerland.  The  interior 
of  the  building  made  a  mournful  impression  on  me  ;  but  the  situation 
was  extremely  beautiful.  An  extensive  meadow  separates  it  from  the 
southern  end  of  the  glorious  lake  of  Neufchatel,  on  the  west  side  of 
which  rises  the  Jura  range  of  mountains,  covered  with  vineyards. 
From  the  heights  of  the  Jura,  above  the  village  of  Granson,  rendered 
famous  by  the  defeat  of  Charles  the  Bold,  you  survey  on  the  one 
side  the  entire  chain  of  the  Alps,  from  Mount  Pilatus,  near  Lucerne, 
to  Mount  Blanc  ;  on  the  other  side  you  see  far  away  into  France. 

A  short  time  after  my  arrival,  I  went  to  live  in  the  institution, 
where  I  took  my  meals,  and  slept  along  with  the  children.  If  I 
wanted  to  do  any  work  for  myself,  I  had  to  do  it  while  standing  at  a 
writing  desk  in  the  midst  of  the  tumult  of  one  of  the  classes.  None 
of  the  teachers  had  a  sitting-room  to  himself.  I  was  fully  determined 
to  devote  all  my  energies  thenceforth  to  the  institution,  and  accord- 
ingly I  had  brought  with  me  Freddy  Reichardt,  the  brother  of  my 
future  wife,  a  boy  of  eight  years,  and  now  placed  him  among  the 
other' scholars.  My  position  was  well  suited  to  enable  me  to  compare 
the  reports  on  the  institution  with  what  I  daily  saw  and  experienced. 
The  higher  my  expectations  had  been  raised  by  that  report,  the  deep- 
er was  my  pain,  as  I  was  gradually  undeceived  ;  I  even  thought  I  saw 
the  last  hopes  of  my  native  land  disappear. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  for  me  to  particularize  the  respects  in  which 
I  was  undeceived  ;  they  may  be  learnt  from  Pestalozzi's  notes  to  the 
latter  copy  of  his  report,  but  especially  from  his  work,  "The  Fortunes 
of  my  Life."  Nevertheless  I  will  advert  to  one  or  two  principal 
points. 

I  will  particularly  advert  to  what  is  said  in  the  report  about  the 
spirit  of  the  institution,  which  is  represented  as  being  similar  to  that 
which  pervades  a  family. 

"  Wo  may  with  a  good  conscience,  declare  publicly,  that  the  children  in  our 
institution  are  happy  and  cheerful ;  that  their  innocence  is  preserved,  their  reli- 
gious disposition  cherished,  their  mind  formed,  ther  knowledge  increased,  their 
hearts  elevated.  The  arrangements  which  have  been  adopted  for  attaining  these 
objects  possess  a  quiet  inward  power.  They  are  based  principally  on  the  benev- 
olent and  amiable  character  which  distinguishes  the  teachers  of  our  house,  and 
which  is  supported  by  a  vigorous  activity.  There  reigns  throughout  the  entire 
institution  the  spirit  of  a  great  domestic  union,  in  which,  according  to  the  re- 
quirements of  such  a  union,  a  pure  paternal  and  fraternal  feeling  every  whero 


90  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZL 

shines  forth.  The  children  feel  themselves  free,  their  activity  finds  even  a  pow- 
erful charm  in  their  employments ;  the  confidence  reposed  in  them,  and  the  af- 
fection shown  toward  them,  elevate  their  sentiments."  "  The  life  in  the  house 
is,  to  a  rare  extent,  a  school  for  cultivating  domestic  affection  and  domestic  un- 
ity." "All  the  teachers  in  common,  acting  as  an  organized  whole,  do  for  all  the 
children  what  a  careful  mother  does  for  the  few  children  of  her  own  family." 
The  body  of  teachers  "  attains  the  most  perfect  unity  of  thought  and  action, 
and  appears  to  the  children  as  only  one  person." 

"In  general,  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  we  seek  throughout  to  awaken  and  to 
foster  the  spirit  of  peace,  of  love,  and  of  mutual  brotherly  fellowship.  The  dis- 
position of  the  great  body  of  our  inmates  is  good.  A  spirit  of  strength,  of  re- 
pose, and  of  endeavor  rests  on  the  whole.  There  is  much  in  our  midst  that  is 
eminently  good.  Some  pupils  evince  an  angelic  disposition,  full  of  love  and  of  a 
presentiment  of  higher  thoughts  and  a  higher  existence.  The  bad  ones  do  not 
feel  themselves  comfortable  in  the  midst  of  our  life  and  labor  ;  on  the  other 
hand,  every  spark  of  good  and  noble  feeling  which  still  glimmers  even  in  the 
bad  ones  encouraged  and  developed.  The  children  are  in  general  neither  har- 
dened by  punishment,  nor  rendered  vain  and  superficial  by  rewards.  The  mild 
forbearance  of  the  most  amiable  household  has  the  most  undisturbed  play  in  our 
midst.  The  children's  feelings  are  not  lightly  wounded.  The  weak  are  not 
made  to  compare  themselves  with  the  strong,  but  with  themselves.  We  never 
ask  a  pupil  if  he  can  do  what  another  does.  We  only  ask  him  if  he  can  do  a 
thing.  But  we  always  ask  him  if  he  can  doit  perfectly.  As  little  of  the  strug- 
gle of  competition  takes  place  between  one  pupil  and  another,  as  between 
affectionate  brothers  and  sisters  who  live  with  a  loving  mother  in  a  happy 
condition." 

"  We  live  together  united  in  brotherly  love,  free  and  cheerful,  and  are,  in  re- 
spect to  that  which  we  acknowledge  as  the  one  thing  needful,  one  heart  and 
one  soul.  We  may  also  say  that  our  pupils  are  one  heart  and  one  soul  with  us. 
They  feel  that  we  treat  them  in  a  fatherly  manner ;  they  feel  that  we  serve  them, 
and  that  we  are  glad  to  serve  them ;  they  feel  that  we  do  not  merely  instruct 
them ;  they  feel  that  for  their  education  we  give  life  and  motion  to  every  thing 
in  them  that  belongs  to  the  character  of  man.  They  also  hang  with  their 
whole  hearts  on  our  actions.  They  live  in  the  constant  consciousness  of  their 
own  strength." 

Must  not  even  a  sober  reader  of  these  passages  be  led  to  believe 
that  a  spirit  of  the  most  cordial  love  and  concord  reigned  in  a  rare 
manner  in  the  Pestalozzian  institution.  How  much  more  did  I  believe 
so,  who,  deeply  distressed  by  the  calamities  of  those  days,  and  inspired 
with  hope  by  the  eloquence  of  Fichte,  perceived  in  Yverdun  the 
commencement  of  a  better  time,  and  ardently  longed  to  hasten  its 
approach.  Those  who  did  not  themselves  live  through  those  years 
of  anguish,  in  which  injustice  increased  and  love  waxed  cold  in  the 
hearts  of  many,  may  perhaps  smile  at  the  enthusiasm  of  despair. 

Pestalozzi  himself  says  of  the  institution  that,  as  early  as  the  time 
when  it  was  removed  from  Buchsee  to  Yverdun,  it  bare  within  itself 
"  the  seeds  of  its  own  internal  decay,  (these  are  his  own  words,)  in  the 
unequal  and  contradictory  character  of  the  abilities,  opinions,  inclina- 
tions, and  claims  of  its  members  ;  although  as  yet  this  dissension  had 
done  any  thing  but  declare  itself  general,  unrestrained,  and  fierce." 
He  says,  that  nevertheless  many  of  the  members  were  still  desirous 
for  peace,  and  that  others  were  moderate  in  their  views  and  feelings. 
"  But  the  seeds  of  our  decay  had  been  sown,  and  though  they  were 
Btill  invisible  in  many  places,  had  taken  deep  root.  Led  aside  by 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  gj 

worldly  temptations  and  apparent  good  fortune  from  the  purity,  sim- 
plicity, and  innocence  of  our  first  endeavors,  divided  among  ourselves 
in  our  inmost  feelings,  and  from  the  first  made  incapable,  by  the 
heterogeneous  nature  of  our  peculiarities  of  ever  becoming  of  one 
mind  and  one  heart  in  spirit  and  in  truth  for  the  attainment  of  our 
objects,  we  stood  there  outwardly  united,  even  deceiving  ourselves 
with  respect  to  the  real  truth  of  our  inclination  to  this  union,  and 
unfortunately  we  advanced,  each  one  in  his  own  manner,  with  firm 
and  at  one  time  with  rapid  steps  along  a  path  which,  without  our 
being  really  conscious  of  it,  separated  us  every  day  further  from  the 
possibility  of  our  ever  being  united. 

What  Ramsauer  says  entirely  agrees  with  this.  In  Burgdorf,  he 
says,  there  reigned  a  kindly  spirit.  "  This  ceased  when  the  family 
life  was  transformed  in  the  institution  into  a  constitutional  state 
existence.  Now  the  individual  was  more  easily  lost  in  the  crowd  : 
thus  there  arose  a  desire  on  his  part  to  make  himself  felt  and  noticed. 
Egotism  made  its  appearance  every  day  in  more  offensive  forms. 
Envy  and  jealousy  rankled  in  the  breasts  of  many."  "  Much  indeed 
was  said  about  *  a  domestic  life,'  which  ought  to  prevail  in  an  educa- 
tional establishment,  just  as  a  very  great  deal  was  said  and  written 
about  an  '  harmonious  development  of  all  the  faculties  of  the  pupil ;' 
but  both  existed  more  in  theory  than  in  practice.  It  is  true,  that  a 
good  deal  of  common  interest  was  evinced  in  the  general  working  of 
the  institution,  but  the  details  were  allowed  to  go  on  or  stand  still 
very  much  as  they  might,  and  the  tone  of  the  whole  house  was 
more  a  tone  of  pushing  and  driving  than  one  of  domestic  quietude." 

In  the  report  is  thjs  passage  :  "  In  respect  to  the  execution  of  the 
design,  we  may  say  decidedly,  that  the  institution  has  stood  the  fiery 
ordeal  of  eight  severe  years." 

On  this  passage  Pestalozzi  remarks  as  follows  in  1823  :  "  What  is 
here  said  in  confirmation  of  this  view  is  altogether  a  consequence  of 
the  great  delusion  under  which  we  lay  at  that  period,  namely,  that  all 
those  things  in  regard  to  which  we  had  strong  intentions  and  some 
clear  ideas,  were  really  as  they  ought  to  have  been,  and  as  we  should 
have  liked  to  make  them.  But  the  consequences  of  the  partial  truth 
which  in  this  instance  had  hold  of  our  minds  were,  from  want  of  suf- 
ficient knowledge,  ability,  and  skill  for  carrying  it  out,  fixed  in  our 
midst,  confused,  and  made  the  seed  of  countless  weeds,  by  which  the 
good  seed  that  lay  in  the  ground  was  on  all  sides  crowded,  and  here 
and  there  choked.  Neither  did  we  perceive  the  weeds  at  that  time ; 
indeed,  as  we  then  lived,  thought,  acted,  and  dreamt,  it  was  impossi- 
ble that  we  should  perceive  them." 


92  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

I  am  fully  aware  that  by  some  these  later  observations  of  Pestalozzi 
have  been  attributed  partly  to  the  weakness  of  old  age,  partly  to  the 
influence  of  Schmid.  To  this  I  can  not  assent.  As  early  as  new- 
year's  day,  1808,  at  the  same  time  as  the  report  appeared,  Pestalozzi 
said  to  his  teachers  : 

"  My  work  was  founded  in  love  ;  love  vanished  from  our  midst ;  it  could  not 
but  vanish.  We  deceived  ourselves  as  to  the  strength  which  this  love  de- 
mands ;  it  could  not  but  vanish.  I  am  no  longer  in  a  position  to  provide  any 
help  for  it.  The  poison  which  eats  into  the  heart  of  our  work  is  accumulating 
in  our  midst.  Worldly  honor  will  increase  this  poison.  0  God,  grant  that  we 
may  no  longer  be  overcome  by  our  delusion.  I  look  upon  the  laurels  which  are 
strewn  in  our  path  as  laurels  set  up  over  a  skeleton.  1  see  before  my  eyes  the 
skeleton  of  my  work,  in  so  far  as  it  is  my  work.  I  desire  to  place  it  before  your 
eyes.  I  saw  the  skeleton  which  is  in  my  house  appear  crowned  with  laurels  be- 
fore my  eyes,  and  the  laurels  suddenly  go  up  in  flames.  They  can  not  bear  the 
lire  of  affliction  which  must  and  will  come  upon  my  house  ;  they  will  disap- 
pear ;  they  must  disappear.  My  work  will  stand.  But  the  consequences  of 
my  faults  will  not  pass  away.  I  shall  be  vanquished  by  them.  My  deliverance 
is  the  grave.  I  go  away,  but  you  remain,  Would  that  these  words  now  stood 
before  your  eyes  in  flames  of  fire ! — Friends,  make  yourselves  better  than  I  was, 
that  God  may  finish  his  work  through  you,  as  he  does  not  finish  it  through  me. 
Make  yourselves  better  than  I  was.  Do  not  by  your  faults  lay  those  same  hin- 
drances in  your  way  that  I  have  lain  in  mine.  Do  not  let  the  appearance  of  success 
deceive  you,  as  it  deceived  me.  You  are  called  to  higher,  to  general  sacrifice, 
or  you  too  will  fail  to  save  my  work.  Enjoy  the  passing  hour,  enjoy  the  full- 
ness of  worldly  honor,  the  measure  of  which  has  risen  for  us  to  its  greatest 
height ;  but  remember  that  it  vanishes  like  the  flower  of  the  field,  which  blooms 
for  a  little  while,  but  soon  passes  away." 

What  contradictions  !  Does  then  the  same  fountain  send  forth  both 
sweet  and  bitter  ?  Was  the  report  actually  intended  to  deceive  the 
world  ? 

Never;  but  Pestalozzi  was  not  entirely  free  from  an  unfortunate 
spirit  of  worldly  calculation,  although  his  calculations  in  most  cases 
turned  out  incorrect.  Ever  full  of  the  idea  of  spreading  happiness 
over  many  lands,  in  a  short  time,  by  means  of  his  methods  of  instruc- 
tion and  education,  he  naturally  considered  it  all-important  that  peo- 
ple should  have  a  good  opinion  of  his  institution.  By  the  bulk  of  the 
public,  indeed,  the  institution  was  taken  as  substantial  evidence  for  or 
against  the  excellence  and  practicability  of  his  educational  ideas  :  with 
it  they  stood  or  fell. 

The  concern  which  Pestalozzi  felt  about  the  reputation  of  his 
establishment  became  especially  apparent  when  foreigners,  particularly 
persons  of  distinction,  visited  Yverdun. 

"  As  many  hundred  times  in  the  course  of  the  year,"  says  Ramsauer,  "  as 
foreigners  visited  the  Pestalozzian  Institution,  so  many  hundred  times  did  Pesta- 
lozzi allow  himself,  in  his  enthusiasm,  to  be  deceived  by  them.  On  the  arrival 
of  every  fresh  visitor,  he  would  go  to  the  teachers  in  whom  he  placed  most  con- 
fidence and  say  to  them :  '  This  is  an  important  personage,  who  wants  to 
become  acquainted  with  all  we  are  doing.  Take  your  best  pupils  and  their 
analysis-books,  (copy-books  in  which  the  lessons  wore  written  out,)  and  show 
him  what  we  can  do  and  what  we  wish  to  do.'  Hundreds  and  hundreds  of 
times  there  came  to  the  institution,  silly,  curious,  and  often  totally  uneducated 
pereons,  who  came  because  it  was  the  'the  fashion.'  On  their  account,  we 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  93 

usually  had  to  interrupt  the  class  instruction  and  hold  a  kind  of  examination. 
In  1814,  the  aged  Prince  Elsterhazy  came.  Pestalozzi  rail  all  over  the  house, 
calling  out :  '  Rarnsauer,  Ramsauer,  where  are  you  ?  Come  directly  with  your 
best  pupils  to  the  Red  House,  (the  hotel  at  which  the  Prince  had  alighted.) 
He  is  a  person  of  the  highest  importance  and  of  infinite  wealth ;  he  has  thou- 
sands of  bond-slaves  in  Hungary  and  Austria.  He  is  certain  to  build  schools 
and  set  free  his  slaves,  if  he  is  made  to  take  an  interest  in  the  matter.'  I  took 
about  fifteen  pupils  to  the  hotel.  Pestalozzi  presented  me  to  the  Prince  with 
these  words :  '  This  is  the  teacher  of  these  scholars,  a  young  man  who  fifteen 
years  ago  migrated  with  other  poor  children  from  the  canton  of  Appenzell  and 
came  to  me.  But  he  received  an  elementary  education,  according  to  his  individ- 
ual aptitudes,  without  let  or  hindrance.  Now  he  is  himself  a  teacher.  Thus 
you  see  that  there  is  as  much  ability  in  the  poor  as  in  the  richest,  frequently 
more ;  but  in  the  former  it  is  seldom  developed,  and  even  then,  not  methodically. 
It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  improvement  of  the  popular  schools  is  so  highly  im- 
portant. But  he  will  show  you  every  thing  that  we  do  better  than  I  could.  I 
will,  therefore,  leave  him  with  you  for  the  present.'  I  now  examined  the 
pupils,  taught,  explained,  and  bawled,  in  my  zeal,  till  I  was  quite  hoarse, 
believing  that  the  Prince  was  thoroughly  convinced  about  every  thing.  At  the 
end  of  an  hour,  Pestalozzi  returned.  The  Prince  expressed  his  pleasure  at  what 
he  had  seen.  He  then  took  leave,  and  Pestalozzi,  standing  on  the  steps  of  the 
hotel,  said :  '  He  is  quite  convinced,  quite  convinced,  and  will  certainly  establish 
schools  on  his  Hungarian  estates.'  When  we  had  descended  the  stairs,  Pesta- 
lozzi said :  '  Whatever  ails  my  arm  ?  It  is  so  painful.  Why,  see,  it  is  quite 
swollen,  I  can't  bend  it.'  And  in  truth  his  wide  sleeve  was  now  too  small  for 
his  arm.  I  looked  at  the  key  of  the  house-door  of  the  maison  rouge  and  said 
to  Pestalozzi ;  '  Look  here,  you  struck  yourself  against  this  key  when  we  were 
going  to  the  Prince  an  hour  ago.'  On  closer  observation  it  appeared  that  Pesta- 
lozzi had  actually  bent  the  key  by  hitting  his  elbow  against  it.  In  the  first 
hour  afterward  he  had  not  noticed  the  pain,  for  the  excess  of  his  zeal  and  his 
joy.  So  ardent  and  zealous  was  the  good  old  man,  already  numbering  seventy 
years,  when  he  thought  he  had  an  opportunity  of  doing  good.  I  could  adduce 
many  such  instances.  It  was  nothing  rare  in  summer  for  strangers  to  come  to 
the  castle  four  or  five  times  in  the  same  day,  and  for  us  to  have  to  interrupt  the 
instruction  on  their  account  two,  three  or  four  times." 

After  this  highly  characteristic  account,  I  ask  the  reader  whether 
he  will  cast  a  stone  at  the  amiable  and  enthusiastic  old  man?  I  cer- 
tainly will  not,  though  I  could  heartily  have  wished  that,  faithful  in 
small  things  and  mindful  of  the  grain  of  mustard  seed,  he  had  plant- 
ed his  work  in  stillness,  and  that  it  had  been  slow  and  sound  in  its 
growth,  even  if  it  had  been  observed  by  only  a  few. 

The  source  of  the  internal  contradiction  which  runs  through  the 
life  of  Pestalozzi,  was,  as  we  saw  from  his  own  confessions,  the  fact 
that,  in  spite  of  his  grand  ideal,  which  comprehended  the  whole  human 
race,  he  did  not  possess  the  ability  and  skill  requisite  for  conducting 
even  the  smallest  village  school.  His  highly  active  imagination  led 
him  to  consider  and  describe  as  actually  existing  in  the  institution 
whatever  he  hoped  sooner  or  later  to  see  realized.  His  hopeful  spir- 
it foresaw  future  development  in  what  was  already  accomplished,  and 
expected  that  others  would  benevolently  do  the  same.  This  bold  as- 
sumption has  an  effect  on  many,  especially  on  the  teachers  of  the 
institution.  This  appears  to  explain  how,  in  the  report  on  the  institu- 
tion, so  much  could  be  said  bond  fide  which  a  sober  spectator  was 
forced  to  pronounce  untrue. 


94  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZ1. 

But  this  self-delusion  is  never  of  long  duration  ;  the  period  of  over- 
strung enthusiasm  is  followed  by  one  of  hopelessness  and  dejection. 
The  heart  of  man  is  indeed  an  alternately  proud  and  dejected  thing  ! 
Such  an  ebb  and  flow  of  lofty  enthusiasm  and  utter  despair  pervades 
the  entire  life  of  Pestalozzi.  The  address  which  he  delivered  to  his 
teachers  in  1808  appears  almost  as  the  caput  mortuumof  the  report: 
the  truth  at  last  makes  itself  heard  in  tones  of  bitter  remorse.  Pes- 
talozzi makes  a  more  tranquil  confession  concerning  the  early  times  of 
Yverdun,  at  a  later  period  of  his  life,  in  his  autobiography.  More 
than  sixteen  years  had  elapsed,  and  passion  had  cooled  down.  He 
states  soberly  what  he  had  enthusiastically  wished  to  accomplish  in 
those  earlier  days ;  he  acknowledges  that  he  had  deceived  himself 
and  he  can  now  therefore  relate  the  history  of  the  institution  clearly 
and  truthfully.  But  the  times  less  removed  from  him  are  still  too 
present  to  his  feelings,  too  near  to  his  impassioned  gaze,  for  him  to 
be  able  to  delineate  them  with  the  same  historical  clearness  in  that 
work. 

The  report  speaks  of  the  instruction  imparted  in  the  institution  in 
a  way  which  can  not  have  failed  to  give  offense  to  persons  who  were 
not  enthusiastically  prejudiced  in  favor  of  Pestalozzi.  Listen  to  these 
remarks  : — 

"  With  regard  to  the  subjects  of  the  instruction  generally,  the  following  is 
what  may  be  stated.  The  child  learns  to  know  and  exercise  himself)  that  is,  his 
physical,  intellectual,  moral,  and  religious  faculties.  With  this  instruction  to  the 
child  about  himself,  instruction  about  nature  keeps  pace.  Commencing  with 
the  child  in  his  domestic  relations,  the  latter  instruction  gradually  embraces  hu- 
man nature  in  all  the  above  mentioned  aspects.  And  in  the  same  way,  com- 
mencing with  the  circle  of  the  child's  observation,  it  gradually  embraces  the 
whole  of  external  nature.  From  the  first  starting  point,  the  child  is  led  to  an 
insight  into  the  essential  relations  of  mankind  and  society ;  from  the  second  to 
an  insight  into  the  relations  in  which  the  human  race  stands  to  external  nature, 
and  external  nature  to  the  human  race.  Man  and  nature,  and  their  mutual  re- 
lation, constitute,  therefore,  the  primary  matter  of  the  instruction ;  and  from 
these  subjects  the  knowledge  of  all  separate  branches  of  study  is  developed.  It 
must  here  be  remarked,  however,  that  the  aim  of  the  instruction  is  not  to  make 
the  pupils  comprehend  man  and  nature  merely  externally,  that  is,  merely  in  so 
far  as  they  present  isolated  imperical  characteristics,  capable  of  being  arranged 
either  in  a  logical  sequence  of  separate  units,  or  in  any  other  order  that  may  be 
convenient.  The  aim  is  rather  to  make  the  pupils  observe  things  as  a  living  and 
organic  whole,  harmoniously  bound  together  by  necessary  and  eternal  laws,  and 
developing  itself  from  something  simple  and  original,  so  that  we  may  thus  bring 
them  to  see  how  one  thing  is  linked  in  another.  The  instruction,  as  a  whole, 
does  not  proceed  from  any  theory,  but  from  the  very  life  and  substance  of  na- 
ture ;  and  every  theory  appears  only  as  the  expression  and  representation  of 
this  observed  life  and  substance." 

I  am  relieved  from  the  necessity  of  offering  any  criticism  on  this 
passage  by  a  note  which  Pestalozzi  added  to  it  fifteen  years  later. 
"  In  this  and  several  other  passages,"  says  the  venerable  old  man,  "  I 
express,  not  so  much  my  own  peculiar  views  on  education  in  their 
original  simplicity,  as  certain  immature  philosophical  views,  with 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SVSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  95 

which,  at  that  time,  notwithstanding  all  our  good  intentions,  most  of 
the  inmates  of  our  house,  myself  among  the  rest,  must  needs  perplex 
our  heads,  and  which  brought  me  personally  to  a  standstill  in  my  en- 
deavors. These  views  caused  the  house  and  the  institution,  both 
of  which  attained  at  this  period  a  seeming  flourishing  condition, 
to  go  rotten  at  the  roots ;  and  they  are  to  be  looked  upon  as  the 
hidden  source  of  all  the  misfortunes  which  have  since  come  upon  me." 
It  would  take  too  long  to  follow  the  report  in  the  accounts  which 
it  gives  of  the  instruction  in  the  separate  branches  of  knowledge.  In 
every  thing  Pestalozzi  wants  to  be  entirely  novel,  and  just  for  this  rea- 
son he  falls  into  mistakes.  Take,  as  a  specimen,  the  following  on  the 
instruction  in  geography  : — 

"  The  instruction  in  this  subject  begins  with  the  observation  of  the  district  in 
which  we  live,  as  a  type  of  what  the  surface  of  the  earth  presents.  It  is  then 
separated  into  elementary  instruction,  which  includes  physical,  mathematical, 
and  political  geography,  and  (2,)  the  topographical  part,  in  which  each  of  the  de- 
partments of  the  subject  suggested  by  the  observation  of  the  surrounding  dis- 
trict is  prosecuted  in  a  graduated  course,  and  their  reciprocal  bearings  brought 
out.  By  this  foundation,  the  pupils  are  prepared  .for  forming  a  clear  and  com- 
prehensive view  of  the  earth  and  man,  and  their  mutual  influence  on  each  oth- 
er, of  the  condition  of  states  and  peoples,  of  the  progress  of  the  human  race  in 
intellectual  culture,  and  lastly  of  physical  science  in  its  broader  outlines  and 
more  general  relations.  The  children  are  made  acquainted  with  the  statistical 
portion  of  the  subject,  that  is,  the  natural  productions,  the  number  of  inhabit- 
ants, form  of  government,  &c.,  by  means  of  tabular  views." 

After  this,  need  we  wonder  when  we  find  Pestalozzi,  in  his  me- 
moirs, speaking  of  the  earlier  days  of  Yverdun  in  the  following 
manner  ?  "  The  desire  of  governing,  in  itself  unnatural,  was  called 
forth  among  us  at  this  period,  on  the  one  hand,  by  the  reputation  of 
our  modes  of  instruction,  which  continued  to  increase  after  our  return 
to  Yverdun,  and  the  intoxicating  good  fortune  that  streamed  to  near- 
ly every  fool  who  hung  out  the  sign-board  of  an  elementary  method 
which,  in  reality,  did  not  as  yet  exist ;  on  the  other,  by  the  audacity 
of  our  behavior  toward  the  whole  world,  and  toward  every  thing  that 
was  done  in  education  and  was  not  cast  in  our  mould.  The  thing  is 
melancholy  ;  but  it  is  true.  We  poor  weak  birds  presumed  to  take 
our  little  nestlings,  ere  they  were  fairly  out  of  their  shells,  on  flights 
which  even  the  strongest  birds  do  not  attempt  until  their  young  ones 
have  gained  strength  in  many  previous  trials.  We  announced  pub- 
licly things  which  we  had  neither  the  strength  nor  the  means  to 
accomplish.  There  are  hundreds  and  hundreds  of  these  vain  boastings 
of  which  I  do  not  like  to  speak." 

No  wonder  that,  in  this  state  of  things,  there  arose  a  determined 
opposition  to  the  institution.  In  Switzerland  especially,  Pestalozzi 
says,  the  public  journals  began  "to  speak  decidedly  against  our 
pretensions,  asserting  that  what  we  did  was  by  no  means  what  we 


yg  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

considered  and  represented  ourselves  to  be  doing.  But,  (be  contin- 
ues,) instead  of  penitently  returning  to  modesty,  we  sturdily  resisted 
this  opposition.  Wbile  participating  in  this  temerity,  which  is  now 
incomprehensible  to  me,  I  began  to  be  sensible  that  we  were  treading 
in  paths  which  might  lead  us  astray,  and  that,  in  truth,  many  things 
in  the  midst  of  us  were  not  as  they  should  have  been,  and  as  we 
endeavored  to  make  them  appear  in  the  eyes  of  the  world." 

Other  members  of  the  institution  thought  quite  differently  ;  full  of 
self-confidence,  they  pressed  for  a  formal  examination ;  and  in  the 
month  of  May,  1809,  an  application  to  that  effect  was  made  to  the 
Swiss  Diet,  then  assembled  at  Freiburg.  The  request  was  granted, 
and  Merian,  member  of  the  executive  council  of  Basel ;  Trechsel, 
professor  of  mathematics,  at  Bern  ;  and  Pere  Girard,  of  Freiburg, 
were  commissioned  by  Governor  D'Affry  to  examine  the  institution. 

In  November,  1809,  just  after  I  had  arrived  in  Yverdun,  this  com- 
mission of  inquiry  came  down  and  remained  five  days.  They  were 
five  sultry  days  for  Pestalozzi  and  his  teachers ;  it  was  felt  that  the 
commission,  which  confined  itself  strictly  to  actual  results,  would  make 
no  very  enthusiastic  report.  Pere  Gerard  wrote  the  report  in  French, 
Professor  Trechsel  translated  it  into  German  ;  on  the  12th  of  May, 
1810,  it  was  presented  to  the  Diet,  then  assembled  at  Solothurn.  In 
the  following  year,  the  thanks  of  the  country  were  accorded  to 
Pestalozzi,  by  the  Diet ;  and  there  the  matter  was  allowed  to  rest. 

I  believe  that  the  commission  pronounced  an  impartial  judgment ; 
the  conclusion  of  the  report  speaks  for  the  whole.  "  The  educational 
methods  of  the  institution,  (say  the  commissioners,)  stand  only  in 
very  imperfect  connection  with  our  establishments  for  public  instruc- 
tion. The  institution  has  in  no  way  aimed  at  coming  into  harmony 
with  these  public  schools.  Determined  at  any  price  to  interest  all  the 
faculties  of  children,  in  order  to  guide  their  development  according  to 
its  own  principles,  it  has  taken  counsel  of  its  own  views  only,  and  be- 
trays an  irresistible  desire  to  open  for  itself  new  paths,  even  at  the 
cost  of  never  treading  in  those  which  usage  has  now  established. 
This  was  perhaps  the  right  means  for  arriving  at  useful  discoveries, 
but  it  was  also  a  design  which  rendered  harmony  impossible.  The 
institution  pursues  its  own  way  ;  the  public  institutions  pursue  theirs  ; 
and  there  is  no  probability  that  both  ways  will  very  soon  meet.  It  is 
a  pity  that  the  force  of  circumstances  has  always  driven  Mr.  Pesta- 
lozzi beyond  the  career  which  his  pure  zeal  and  his  fervent  charity  had 
marked  out  for  him.  A  good  intention,  noble  endeavors,  indefatiga- 
ble perseverance,  should  and  will  always  meet  with  justice.  Let  us 
profit  by  the  excellent  ideas  which  lie  at  the  foundation  of  the  whole 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  97 

undertaking ;  let  us  follow  its  instructive  examples ;  but  let  us  also 
lament  that  an  adverse  fate  must  hang  over  a  man,  who,  by  the  force 
of  circumstances,  is  constantly  hindered  from  doing  what  he  would 
wish  to  do." 

After  the  publication  of  the  report,  there  arose  a  long  and  violent 
literary  warfare,  which  did  any  thing  but  add  to  the  credit  of  the  in- 
stitution.* With  this  war  against  external  foes,  was  unfortunately 
associated  an  internal  feud,  which  ended  in  the  departure  of  Schmid 
and  others  of  the  teachers. 

One  of  Pestalozzi's  biographers  states,  that  Schmid's  pride  and  pre- 
tensions had  grown  to  such  an  extent,  that  he  had  acted  with  the 
greatest  harshness  toward  Pestalozzi,  Niederer,  and  Kriisi.  "This 
was  caused,"  continues  the  biographer,  "  by  some  ideas  which  he  had 
partially  caught  up  from  two  scientific  men  who  were  then  stopping 
with  Pestalozzi,  (one  of  them  is  now  a  man  of  note  in  Silesia.)  Per- 
haps at  that  time  these  ideas  were  not  very  clearly  defined  in  the 
minds  of  those  men  themselves."! 

The  biographer  means  me  and  my  friend  ;  I  shall  therefore  not  be 
misunderstood,  if  I  relate  briefly  the  matter  to  which  he  refers. 

I  had  come  to  learn  and  to  render  service.  On  this  account,  I 
took  up  my  quarters  entirely  in  the  old  building  of  the  institution, 
slept  in  one  of  the  large  dormitories,  took  my  meals  with  the  chil- 
dren, attended  the  lessons,  morning  and  evening  prayers,  and  the  con- 
ferences of  the  teachers.  I  listened  and  observed  attentively  in 
silence ;  but  I  was  far  from  thinking  of  commencing  myself  to  teach. 
My  opinion  upon  all  the  things  that  I  saw  and  heard  was  formed  very 
much  with  reference  to  the  boy  of  eight  years  intrusted  to  my  care, 
accordingly  as  they  contributed  to  his  comfort  or  otherwise.  Several 
weeks  had  passed  on  in  this  way,  when  I  was  one  evening  with  Pes- 
talozzi and  the  rest  of  the  teachers  at  the  hotel  of  the  Wild  Man, 
where  they  used  to  meet  I. think  once  a  fortnight.  After  supper, 
Pestalozzi  called  me  into  an  adjoining  room  ;  we  were  quite  alone. 
"  My  teachers  are  afraid  of  you,"  he  said,  "  because  you  only  listen 
and  look  on  in  silence  ;  why  do  you  not  teach  ?"  I  answered  that 
before  teaching,  I  wished  to  learn — to  learn  in  silence.  After  the 

*  The  well-known  K.  L.  von  Haller  noticed  the  report  of  the  commission  in  terms  of  high 
praise,  in  the  GVttirtgen  Literary  Advertiser^  of  the  13th  of  April,  1811,  and  at  the  same  time 
accused  the  Pestalozzian  Institution  of  inspiring  its  pupils  with  an  aversion  from  religion,  the 
constituted  authorities,  and  the  aristocracy.  In  reply  to  this,  Niederer  wrote  "The  Pesta- 
lozzian Institution  to  the  Public."  This  pamphlet  appeared  in  anew  form  in  1812.  under  the 
title,  "  Pestalozzi's  Educational  Undertaking  in  relation  to  the  Civilization  of  the  Present 
Time."  Bremi,  of  Zurich,  wrote  in  reply  to  the  former  pamphlet  ;  Pestalozzi  and  Niederer 
wrote  again  in  reply  to  Bremi.  Niederer  professes  to  have  convicted  Bremi  of  ninety-two 
lies,  thirty-six  falsifications,  and  twenty  calumnies. 

t  Henning,  in  the  Schulrath,  (an  educational  periodical ) 

7 


98  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

conversation  had  touched  on  one  thing  and  another,  he  frankly  told 
me  things  about  several  of  his  teachers  which  put  me  into  a  state  of 
astonishment,  and  which  stood  in  direct  contradiction  with  what  I  had 
read  in  the  report,  but  not  with  what  I  had  myself  already  observed 
or  expected.  Pestalozzi  followed  up  these  disclosures  with  the  pro- 
posal, that  I  and  my  friend,  in  company  with  Schmid,  whom  he 
highly  praised,  especially  for  his  practical  ability  and  his  activity, 
should  set  to  work  to  renovate  the  institution. 

The  proposal  came  upon  me  so  unexpectedly,  that  I  begged  for 
time  to  think  of  it,  and  discussed  the  matter  with  my  friend,  who  was 
just  as  much  surprised  as  I  was.  We  were  both  naturally  brought 
by  this  means  into  a  closer  relation  with  Schmid,  became  in  a-  short 
time  acquainted  with  the  arcana  imperil,  and  honestly  considered 
what  obstacles  stood  in  the  way  of  the  prosperity  of  the  institution, 
and  what  could  be  done  to  remove  them. 

Foremost  of  these  was  the  intermixture  of  German  and  French 
boys,  which  doubly  pained  me,  as  I  had  come  from  Paris.  The  pa- 
rents thought  otherwise :  they  perceived  in  this  very  intermixture  a 
fortunate  means  of  training  their  children  in  the  easiest  way  to  speak 
both  languages  :  whereas  the  result  was,  that  the  children  could  speak 
neither.  With  such  a  medley  of  children,  the  institution  was  devoid 
of  a  predominant  mother-tongue,  and  assumed  the  mongrel  character 
of  border-provinces.  Pestalozzi  read  the  prayers  every  morning  and 
evening,  first  in  German,  then  in  French !  At  the  lessons  in  the  Ger- 
man language,  intended  for  German  children,  I  found  French  children 
who  did  not  understand  the  most  common  German  word.  This,  and 
much  more  that  was  to  be  said  against  this  intermixture,  was  now 
discussed  with  Pestalozzi,  and  the  proposal  was  made  to  him,  to  sep- 
arate the  institution  into  two  departments,  one  for  German,  the 
other  for  French  children.  Only  in  this  way,  it  was  represented  to 
him,  could  the  education  of  each  class  of  children  be  successfully 
conducted. 

The  proposal  was  not  accepted,  chiefly  on  account  of  external  ob- 
stacles, which  might  however  have  been  overcome.  A  passage  in 
Pestalozzi's  "  Fortunes  "  shows  that  he  afterward  thoroughly  agreed 
with  us.  In  this  passage  he  calls  it  an  unnatural  circumstance,  that 
the  institution  was  transplanted  from  Burgdorf  to  Yverdun,  "  from 
German  to  French  soil."  "  When  we  first  come  here,"  he  continues, 
"  our  pupils  were  nearly  all  Germans ;  but  there  was  very  soon  added 
to  them  an  almost  equal  number  of  French  children.  Most  of  the 
German  children  were  now  intrusted  to  us,  not  with  any  particular 
reference  to  any  elementary  or  other  education,  but  simply  in  order 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  99 

that  they  might  learn  to  speak  French  in  a  German  house,  and  this 
was  the  very  thing  that  we  were  least  able  to  teach  "them  ;  so  also 
most  of  the  French  parents  intrusted  their  children  to  us,  in  order 
that  they  might  learn  German  in  our  German  house :  and  here  we 
stood  between  these  two  claims,  equally  unable  to  satisfy  either  the 
one  or  the  other.  At  the  same  time,  the  persons  on  either  side,  who 
committed  their  children  to  our  care,  saw  with  as  little  distinctness 
what  they  really  wished  of  us,  as  we  did  the  extent  of  our  inability 
to  satisfy  their  real  wishes.  But  it  had  now  become  the  fashion  to 
send  us  children  from  all  sides  ;  and  so,  in  respect  to  pecuniary 
resources  and  eulogistic  prattle,  things  went  on  for  a  considerable  time 
in  thejr  old  glittering  but  deceptive  path." 

The  second  evil  was  this.  Much  as  is  said  in  the  report  about  the 
life  in  the  institution  having  quite  the  character  of  that  in  a  family, 
and  even  excelling  it  in  many  respects,  still  nothing  could  be  less  do- 
mestic than  this  life  was.  Leaving  out  of  consideration  Pestalozzi's 
residence,  there  were  indeed  in  the  old  castle  class  rooms,  dining 
rooms,  and  bed  rooms,  but  the  parlor,  so  justly  esteemed  by  Pesta- 
lozzi,  was  altogether  wanting.  Older  boys  who,  as  the  expression  is, 
had  arrived  at  years  of  indiscretion,  may  have  felt  this  want  less  ;  but 
so  much  the  more  was  it  felt  by  the  youngest — by  children  of  six  to 
ten  years.  I  felt  deeply  on  this  account  for  my  little  Freddy,  who, 
until  he  came  to  the  institution,  had  grown  up  under  the  care  of  a 
tender  mother  in  a  lovely  family  circle.  His  present  uncomfortable 
and  even  desolate  existence  grieved  me  much,  and  troubled  my  con- 
science. For  his  sake,  and  at  the  same  time,  for  the  sake  of  the  rest 
of  the  little  boys,  we  begged  Pestalozzi  to  rent  a  beautiful  dwelling 
house  in  the  vicinity  of  Yverdun,  where  the  children  might  find  a 
friendly  compensation  for  the  life  of  the  family  circle  which  they  had 
lost.  We  offered  to  take  up  our  abode  with  them. 

This  proposal  also  was  declined.  It  may  easily  be  supposed  that  in 
the  consultation  upon  it,  the  weak  side  of  the  institution,  the  want  of 
a  parlor,  and  the  impossibility  even  of  supplying  the  place  of  the 
family  life,  was  very  fully  discussed.* 

Many  of  the  conversations  I  had  with  Pestalozzi  I  shall  never  for- 
get. One  of  them  concerned  the  teachers  of  the  institution,  in  par- 
ticular the  under-teachers.  I  saw  that  many  of  them  labored  with 
the  greatest  fidelity  and  conscientiousness,  even  sacrificing  themselves 

*  We  made  a  third  proposal,  because  it  appeared  to  us  to  be  impossible  that  Pestalozzi's 
ideas  could  be  realized  in  Yverdun  under  the  then  existing  circumstances.  We  asked  him  to 
establish  in  the  canton  of  Argovia  the  long  promised  poor  school,  and  offered  to  engage  in 
the  work  ourselves  to  the  best  of  our  ability.  As  he  declined  this  proposal  also,  I  thought  it 
my  duty,  especially  on  account  of  the  boy  confided  to  me,  to  leave  the  institution. 


100  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

for  the  good  of  the  institution.  I  need  only  refer  the  reader  to  the 
autobiography  of  honest,  manful  Ramsauer,  for  evidence  of  this  fact. 
But  still  there  was  something  wanting  in  most  of  the  teachers  ;  this 
Pestalozzi  himself  could  not  help  feeling.  In  his  new  year's  address 
of  1811,  he  said  to  them:  "Do  not  attach  a  higher  value  to  the 
ability  to  teach  well,  than  that  which  it  really  has  in  relation  to  edu- 
cation as  a  whole.  You  have,  perhaps,  too  early  in  your  lives  had  to 
bear  burdens  which  may  have  diminished  somewhat  the  lovely  bloom 
of  your  youth  ;  but  to  you  as  educators,  that  bloom  is  indispensable. 
You  must  seek  to  restore  it.  I  am  not  ignorant  of  your  ability,  your 
worth  ;  but  just  because  I  know  them,  I  would  wish  to  set  upon  them 
the  crown  of  an  amiable  disposition,  which  will  increase  your  worth 
and  make  even  your  ability  a  blessing." 

In  what  then  were  the  teachers  deficient  ?  Pestalozzi  points  out 
one  thing :  many  who  had  grown  up  in  the  institution  had  too  early 
borne  burdens,  and  had  been  kept  in  uninterrupted  exertion.  "  Those 
teachers  who  had  been  pupils  of  Pestalozzi,"  says  Ramsauer,  "  were 
particularly  hard  worked,  for  he  at  all  times  required  much  more  from 
them,  than  he  did  from  the  other  teachers  ;  he  expected  them  to  live 
entirely  for  the  house, — to  be  day  and  night  concerned  for  the  wel- 
fare of  the  house  and  the  pupils.  They  were  to  help  to  bear  every 
burden,  every  unpleasantness,  every  domestic  care,  and  to  be  respon- 
sible for  every  thing.  Thus,  for  example,  in  their  leisure  hours,  (that 
is  when  they  had  no  lessons  to  give,)  they  were  required  at  one  time 
to  work  some  hours  every  day  in  the  garden,  at  another  to  chop 
wood  for  the  fires,  and,  for  some  time,  even  to  light  them  early  in  the 
morning,  or  transcribe,  <fec.  There  were  some  years  in  which  no  one 
of  us  were  found  in  bed  after  three  o'clock  in  the  morning ;  and  we 
had  to  work  summer  and  winter,  from  three  in  the  morning  till  six  in 
the  evening."*  Nearly  all  the  work  consisted  in  {he  direct  perform- 
ance of  school  duties  ;  the  teachers  had  no  time  to  think  of  their  own 
improvement. 

There  was  another  thing.  Most  of  the  teachers  of  the  institution 
might  be  regarded  as  so  many  separate  and  independent  teachers,  who 
had  indeed  received  their  first  instruction  there,  but  who  had  passed 
much  too  soon  from  learning  to  teaching,  and  wished  to  see  how  they 
could  fight  their  way  through.  There  was  never  any  such  thing  as  a 
real  pedagogical  lecture.  Under  such  a  course  of  training,  it  could 
not  happen  otherwise  than  that  some  of  the  teachers  should  strike 
into  peculiar  paths  :  of  this  Schmid  gave  an  example.  But  it  was  an 

*  Ramsaner's  time-table  shows  that,  from  two  or  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  till  nine  in 
the  evening,  he  was  almost  constantly  occupied  with  official  duties. 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  TQ^ 

equally  necessary  consequence,  that  the  usual  characteristic  of  such 
teachers  should  make  itself  apparent  :  namely,  a  great  want  of  self- 
knowledge  and  of  a  proper  modest  estimate  of  their  own  labors. 
"  Man  only  learns  to  know  himself  in  man." 

I  must  know  what  others  have  done  in  my  department  of  science, 
in  order  that  I  may  assign  the  proper  place  and  rank  to  my  own 
labors.  It  is  incredible,  how  many  of  the  mistaken  views  and  prac- 
tices of  Pestalozzi  and  his  teachers  sprang  from  this  source. 

But  there  was  a  third  thing  that  I  brought  against  Pestalozzi :  his 
view  of  the  teachers,  and  their  relation  to  the  methods  and  the 
methodical  compendiums.  As  already  mentioned,  the  compendiums 
were  to  render  all  peculiar  talent  and  skill  in  teaching  as  good  as  un- 
necessary. These  methodical  compendiums  were  like  dressing 
machines,  which  did  not,  unfortunately,  quite  supply  the  place  of 
the  teachers,  but  still  left  the  services  of  a  man  necessary ;  just  as  in 
the  most  perfect  printing  presses,  a  man  must  always  be  appointed, 
though  indeed  he  scarcely  requires  the  most  ordinary  degree  of 
intelligence. 

Pestalozzi's  idea  of  a  teacher  was  not  much  better  than  this ;  ac- 
cording to  his  views,  such  a  one  had  nothing  to  do,  but  to  take  his 
scholars  through  the  compendium,  with  pedantic  accuracy,  according 
to  the  directions  how  to  use  it,  without  adding  thereto,  or  diminishing 
therefrom.  He  was  never  required  to  be  more  than  just  a  step  in  ad- 
vance of  the  scholars.  Just  as  if  a  guide  with  a  lantern  were  to  be 
given  to  a  man  traveling  in  the  night,  and  the  guide  had  not  only  to 
light  the  traveler,  but  first  to  find  out  the  way  himself  with  the  aid 
of  the  lantern.  The  real  teacher  must  have  the  destination  and  the 
road  to  it  so  clear  before  his  mind,  that  he  shall  be  able  to  guide  the 
scholars  without  a  lantern — without  a  book  of  method.  He  must  be 
able  to  say,  La  methode  c'est  moi* 

But  can  any  one  imagine  a  more  miserable  piece  of  slave-work  than 
that  of  a  teacher  who  is  strictly  tied  to  a  Pestalozzian  compendium? 
Is  not  all  peculiar  teaching  power  thereby  fettered, — all  disposition 
to  sprightliness  and  decision  in  teaching  and  acting  kept  down, — all 
affectionate  relation  between  teacher  and  scholar  rendered  impossible  ?f 

At  that  time  the  institution  appeared  to  ine,  in  moments  of  sadness, 
as  a  great  noisy  education  factory  ;  many  mistook  the  dull  noise 

*  "Every  teacher,"  says  Herder,  "  must  have  his  own  method  ;  he  must  have  created  it 
with  intelligence  for  himself,  otherwise  he  will  not  be  successful." 

t  On  leaving  Yverdun  in  1810  and  going  to  Berlin.  I  attended  an  examination  at  Plamann's 
institution.  How  the  free,  independent,  and  untrammeled  teaching  of  Friesen  and  Harnisch 
contrasted  with  the  cold,  methodical,  and  constrained  teaching  of  many  Pestalozzian 
teachers ! 


•102  LIFE* AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

of  the  machines' for  an  expression  of  youthful  joyousness  on  the  part 
of  the  pupils,  while  engaged  in  learning. 

Pestalozzi's  view  of  the  task  of  the  teachers  was  too  intimately 
connected  with  his  general  views  on.  education,  and  had  been  too 
much  realized  in  the  institution  to  allow  me  to  entertain  the  idea  of 
his  changing  it,  although  the  good  old  man  bitterly  felt  that  my 
observation  was  not  without  foundation. 

At  a  later  period,  when  the  brilliancy  of  the  reputation  of  the  in- 
stitution was  decreasing  more  and  more,  Pestalozzi  saw  his  under- 
teachers  in  the  year  1817,  as  he  relates,  "suddenly  combine,  like 
English  factory  work-people,  desist  by  common  consent  from  the  per- 
formance of  their  duties,  and  declare  in  a  body  that  they  would  give 
no  more  lessons,  but  would  remain  in  a  state  of  complete  strike- 
idleness,  until  the  salary  of  every  one  of  them  should  be  doubled." 

Pestalozzi  pressed  me  to  teach  mineralogy,  and  in  doing  so  to  make 
use  of  a  small  collection  of  minerals  which  the  institution  possessed. 
I  replied  that,  if  I  did  do  so,  I  must  entirely  depart  from  the  methods 
of  instruction  pursued  in  the  institution.  How  so  ?  asked  Pestalozzi. 
According  to  that  method,  I  replied,  I  should  have  to  do  nothing  but 
to  hold  up  before  the  boys  one  specimen  of  the  collection  after  an- 
other, to  give  the  name  of  each,  for  example,  "  that  is  chalk,"  and 
thereupon  to  make  the  class  repeat  in  unison  three  times,  "  that  is 
chalk."  It  was  thought  that  in  this  way  the  observation  of  actual 
objects  and  instruction  in  language  were  provided  for  at  the  same 
time. 

I  endeavored  to  explain  that  such  a  mode  of  instruction  made  a 
mere  show,  giving  the  children  words  before  they  had  formed  an  idea 
of  the  images  of  the  minerals  ;  that  moreover  this  process  of  percep- 
tion and  conception  was  only  disturbed  by  the  talking  of  the  teacher 
and  the  repetition  of  the  scholars,  and  was  therefore  best  done  in  si- 
lence. On  Pestalozzi's  opposing  this  view,  I  asked  him  why  children 
are  born  speechless,  and  do  not  begin  to  learn  to  speak  until  they  are 
about  three  years  old ;  why  we  should  in  vain  hold  a  light  before  a 
child  eight  days  old,  and  say  a  light "  three  times,  or  even  a  hundred 
times,  as  the  child  would  certainly  not  try  to  repeat  the  word ; 
whether  this  was  not  an  indication  to  us  from  a  higher  hand,  that 
time  is  necessary  for  the  external  perception  of  the  senses  to  become 
internally  appropriated,  so  that  the  word  shall  only  come  forth  as  the 
matured  fruit  of  the  inward  conception  now  fully  formed.  What 
I  said  about  the  silence  of  children  struck  Pestalozzi. 

As  far  as  my  recollection  extends,  I  have  now  related  the  most  im- 
portant matters  that  were  discussed  between  Pestalozzi,  Schmid,  and 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  }Q<J 

myself.  I  should  at  the  present  day  still  uphold  the  views  which 
I  entertained  at  that  time  ;  but,  taught  by  so  much  experience,  I  should 
perhaps  be  able  to  do  so  with  greater  "  clearness  "  than  I  could  then 
have  done. 

But  here  I  will  by  no  means  represent  myself  as  blameless,  and 
accuse  others.  Although  I  believe  that  my  opinions  were  right,  I 
know  that  my  conduct  was  wrong  in  several  respects  ;  but  this  the 
unhappy  circumstances  of  the  institution  will  perhaps  in  some  meas- 
ure excuse.  I  will  only  mention  one  thing.  Unfortunately,  Niederer 
and  Schmid  were  already  placed  in  complete  opposition  to  each  other 
by  their  different  capabilities,  labors,  and  aims ;  in  spite  of  my  best 
endeavors,  I  found  it  impossible  to  effect  a  mediation  between  them, 
there  was  nothing  left  me  but  to  side  with  the  one  or  the  other. 
Pestalozzi  himself  allied  me  with  Schmid,  whose  resolute  and  restless 
activity  was  a  pledge  to  me  that  he  would  render  powerful  assistance 
in  introducing  reforms.  I  was  thus  brought  almost  involuntarily  into 
opposition  with  Niederer.  Even  though  I  did  not  altogether  agree 
with  his  views,  I  ought  to  have  emphatically  acknowledged  his  self- 
sacrificing  enthusiasm.  I  felt  myself  drawn  to  Kriisi  by  his  mild 
disposition,  but  he  too  was  against  Schmid. 

My  silent  observation  was  distasteful  to  the  younger  teachers ;  can 
I  blame  them  for  it  ?  While  they  were  toiling  with  unheard  of  exer- 
tion from  morning  till  night,  and  had  been  toiling  in  the  same  man- 
ner for  years  previously,  I  looked  on  at  their  toilsome  life  with  a  crit- 
ical eye.  I  appeared  to  them  as  a  strange,  quizzing,  inactive  intruder, 
and  it  was  inevitable  that  I  should  so  appear  to  them.  They  did  not 
know  that  I  had  come  with  so  high  an  opinion  of  the  institution,  that 
I  wished  at  first  only  to  look  on,  only  to  learn,  in  order  to  be  able 
afterward  to  teach  and  to  assist  wherever  I  could. 

That  high  opinion  I  had  imbibed  chiefly  from  the  report.  The  re- 
port led  me  to  form  an  over-estimate  of  the  excellence  of  the  institu- 
tion before  I  went  to  Yverdun,  and  this  over-estimate  led  me  when 
there  to  think  too  lightly  of  its  labors.  I  ought  to  have  acknowl- 
edged then,  the  honest,  conscientious,  toilsome  industry  of  several  of 
the  teachers,  for  instance,  Ramsauer,  even  though  they  did  not  always 
bring  to  light  discoveries  that  were  entirely  new ;  misled  by  the 
report,  I  had  hoped,  it  is  true,  to  find  there  nothing  else  but  new 
discoveries. 

But,  notwithstanding  all  these  evils,  I  should  certainly  have  re- 
mained longer  at  Yverdun,  and  should  have  wrought  in  patient  and 
persevering  hope,  had  I  not  held  it  to  be  my  duty  4o  take  away  the 
boy  intrusted  to  my  care.  I  quitted  Yverdun  with  him  in  May,  1810. 


104  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZ1. 

Soon  after  my  departure,  the  long  restrained  enmity  there  broke  out 
into  an  open  feud.     Schmid  left  the  institution,  and  wrote  against  it. 

In  the  summer  of  1811,  Monsieur  Jullien,  Napoleon's  companion 
in  arms  in  Egypt,  and  Chevalier  of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  visited 
Yverdun.  He  remained  in  the  institution  six  weeks  ;  his  observations 
were  embodied  in  two  works.* 

During  the  war  of  1814,  the  hospital  department  of  the  Austrian 
army  required  that  the  buildings  of  the  institution  should  be  given  up 
for  a  hospital.  Fortunately,  the  Emperor  Alexander  was  then  at 
Basel :  Pestalozzi  immediately  went  to  him,  and  was  received  in  the 
most  friendly  manner;  in  consequence  of  the  interposition  of  the 
emperor,  the  hospital  was  not  established  at  Yverdun.  at  all,  and  in 
November  of  the  same  year  Pestalozzi  received  the  order  of  St. 
Vladimir,  fourth  class. 

Sehmid's  departure  from  the  institution  caused  a  very  sensible  void, 
the  existence  of  which  was  painfully  felt.  Letters  which  Pestalozzi 
wrote  to  Niederer  at  that  time,  bear  witness  to  the  evil  plight  in  which 
the  institution  was  placed.  "  O  Niederer,"  he  writes,  "  without 
strength  and  purity  of  purpose  in  those  who  surround  us,  all  our  en- 
deavors after  what  is  great  and  high  are  lost;  the  sublime  and 
good  can  not  easily  unfold  themselves  where  weakness  and  worthless- 
ness  peer  forth  from  all  corners — -our  greatest  enemies  are  under  our 
own  roof,  and  eat  from  the  same  dish  with  us — it  is  better  to  be  alone 
than  to  accept  delusive  aid  from  baseness." 

In  a  second  letter,  Pestalozzi  writes:  "The  internal  weakness  of 
our  house  has  opened  the  mouth  of  the  weakest  among  us,  for  them 
to  give  us  monkey's  advice  and  hold  public  conferences  about  us 
among  themselves.  The  great  evil  of  our  house  comes  from  boys 
who  here  play  the  part  of  men,  but  who  at  every  other  place  would  be 
schoolboys." 

In  this  period  falls  also  the  visit  of  the  Prussian  Chancellor  of 
State,  von  Beyme,  who  entered  the  institution  "  with  a  great  predis- 
position in  favor  of  Pestalozzi,"  and  before  he  left  it  expressed  himself 
to  the  effect,  that  if  the  institution  held  together  for  another  year,  he 
should  look  upon  it  as  the  greatest  wonder,  for  that,  in  the  instruction 
which  he  had  seen  given  there,  things  were  wanting  which  teachers  in 
the  lowest  village  schools  would  be  ashamed  to  have  neglected. 

Niederer  felt  more  than  any  one  else  the  void  created  by  the  de- 
parture of  Schmid.  As  early  as  the  end  of  the  year  1813,  he  wrote 
to  Schmid  in  the  most  conciliatory  manner,  and  writing  on  the  10th 

*  Precis  sur  Vinstitut  cT  Yverdunen  Suisse,  1812  ;  and  Esprit  de  la  methode  d'6ducation  de 
M.  Pestalozzi. 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  JQ5 

of  February,  1815,  lie  says  :  "With  Pestalozzi,  I  stake  every  tiling  I 
have  upon  bringing  you  back.  Alone  I  can  do  nothing.  You  know 
wherein  I  am  deficient,  but  with  you  arid  a  few  other  distinguished 
and  noble  minded  men,  I  do  not  doubt  of  the  realization  of  an  educa- 
tional heaven  on  earth." 

Pestalozzi  adduces  these  passages  as  certain  proofs  of  Schmid's 
ability,  and  the  high  value  of  his  services  to  the  institution  :  but  they 
also  testify  to  an  honorable  mind  on  the  part  of  Niederer,  who  did 
not  attempt  to  conceal  his  own  practical  incompetency,  and  who  re- 
pressed a  deep-seated  antipathy  to  Schmid,  in  order  to  realize  his 
educational  ideal. 

Schmid  was.  then  at  the  head  of  a  school  in  Bregenz.  At  Nieder- 
er's  pressing  invitation,  he  returned  to  Yverdun  in  the  Easter  of  1815, 
and  now  commenced  a  comprehensive  reform  of  the  institution, 
especially  in  an  economical  point  of  view.  There  soon  arose  a  silent 
but  general  antipathy  to  him. 

On  the  llth  of  the  following  December,  Madame  Pestalozzi  died, 
aged  nearly  eighty  years,  having  been  the  faithful  and  patient  partner 
of  her  husband  during  forty -five  years,  through  times  of  severe  suffer- 
ing. At  her  funeral,  after  a  hymn  had  been  sung,  Pestalozzi,  turning 
toward  the  coffin,  said :  "  We  were  shunned  and  contemned  by  all, 
sickness  and  poverty  bowed  us  down,  and  we  ate  dry  bread  with 
tears;  what  was  it  that,  in  those  days  of  severe  trial,  gave  you  and 
me  strength  to  persevere  and  not  cast  away  our  hope  ?"  Thereupon 
he  took  up  a  Bible,  which  was  lying  near  at  hand,  pressed  it  on  the 
breast  of  the  corpse,  and  said :  "  From  this  source  you  and  I  drew 
courage,  and  strength,  and  peace."  Her  grave  is  under  two  tali 
walnut  trees  in  the  garden  of  the  castle. 

On  this  sorrowful  day,  the  antipathy  of  many  of  the  teachers 
toward  Schmid  first  broke  out  into  open  enmity,  which  was  never 
again  appeased,  and  which  positively  poisoned  the  last  twelve  years 
of 'the  poor  old  man's  life.  From  that  time  every  blessing  seemed  to 
forsake  the  institution,  and  every  new  undertaking  in  which  Pestalozzi 
engaged. 

Most  of  the  teachers  were  against  Schmid.  Blochmann,  for  many 
years  director  of  a  flourishing  educational  establishment  at  Dresden, 
drew  up  a  formal  complaint  against  him,  which  was  signed  by  Kriisi, 
Ramsauer,  Stern,  Ackermann,  and  others,  in  all  twelve  teachers. 

In  the  year  1816,  these  men  left  the  institution,  among  them  even 
Kriisi,  so  many  years  the  fellow-laborer  of  Pestalozzi.  "  Father,"  he 
wrote  to  Pestalozzi,  "  my  time  of  enjoying  your  presence  is  past.  I 
must  leave  your  institution,  as  it  is  now  conducted,  if  I  am  not 


106  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

forever  to  lose  my  courage  and  strength  to  live  for  you  and  your  work. 
For  all  that  you  were  to  me,  and  all  that  I  was  able  to  be  to  you,  I 
thank  God ;  for  all  my  shortcomings,  I  pray  God  and  yourself  to 
forgive  me. 

At  length,  in  1817,  Niederer  also  separated  from  the  institution ; 
Pestalozzi  tried  in  vain  the  following  year  to  reconcile  him  with 
Schmid.  Both  of  them  acknowledged  Pestalozzi  as  their  master,  and 
yet  the  reconciliation  was  impossible.  They  were  too  much  opposed 
to  each  other,  not  merely  in  natural  endowments,  but  in  their  aim  and 
object,  in  the  educational  idea  which  each  endeavored  to  realize  in  the 
institution. 

Niederer  saw  in  Pestalozzi  a  man  who  had  grasped  with  instinctive 
profundity  the  subject  of  human  culture,  but  had  given  only  a  frag- 
mentary view  of  it,  and  who  could  not  control  the  ideas  which,  as  it 
were,  possessed  him.  Niederer  felt  himself  called  to  control  them 
philosophically — to  build  up  out  of  those  mighty  educational  fragments 
a  complete  systematic  theory. 

At  first,  Pestalozzi  could  not  comprehend  him,  not  understanding 
his  philosophical  language.  At  a  later  period,  Pestalozzi  saw  in  him 
the  one  man  in  the  institution,  who,  standing  on  the  pinnacle  of  Ger- 
man culture,  was  fitted  to  assign  to  the  new  method  its  proper  place 
in  the  region  of  human  culture  generally.  Only  by  such  a  man,  he 
thought,  could  the  educated  world,  especially  Germany,  be  won  over 
to  his  educational  plans ;  by  such  a  man  must  his  Swiss  idiom  be 
translated  into  an  intelligible  high  German.  Nay,  for  some  time  he 
even  thought  that  Niederer  understood  him  better  than  he  understood 
himself. 

Niederer  was  deficient  in  the  practical  skill  requisite  for  carrying  out 
his  educational  theory,  as  he  himself  frequently  acknowledged.  His 
intention  in  the  institution  was  more  to  observe  the  results  of  the 
practical  talent  at  work  there,  and  in  this  manner  to  learn  what  he 
could,  but  at  the  same  time  to  see  that  all  the  teachers  wrought 
together  with  one  mind  toward  one  and  the  same  object — the  realiza- 
tion of  the  educational  theory. 

No  wonder  that  Pestalozzi,  as  he  again  and  again  affirmed,  did  not 
feel  himself  attracted  by  Niederer 's  peculiar  character,  even  at  times 
when  the  two  men  stood  in  a  very  friendly  relation  toward  each  other ; 
and  just  as  little  need  we  wonder  that  the  old  man  subsequently 
dissolved  a  connection,  which  had  been  formed  by  his  will  rather  than 
his  inclination. 

But  how  entirely  different  was  his  relation  to  Schmid  !  "  Inexpli- 
caple  feelings,"  he  says,  "  drew  me  toward  him  from  the  moment  of 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  JQ7 

his  appearance  in  our  circle,  as  I  have  never  felt  myself  drawn  toward 
any  other  pupil."  Pestalozzi  writes  characteristically  :  "  I  must  trace 
from  its  origin  the  strength  which  alone  appeared  capable  of  holding 
us  together  in  this  unhappy  state."  This  personified  strength  was  no 
other  than  the  shepherd  boy  Schmid,  who  had  migrated  from  the 
Tyrolese  mountains  to  Burgdorf.  Pestalozzi  says  that  he  soon  left  his 
teachers  behind  him.  "  By  his  practical  talent  and  incessant  activity," 
continues  Pestalozzi,  "  he  soared  above  the  influence  of  every  other 
person  in  the  house.  I  did  not  conceal  that  I  looked  upon  the  strength 
of  this  pupil,  though  still  so  young,  as  the  main  stay  of  my  house." 
Pestalozzi  characterizes  Schmid  in  the  same  way  in  an  address  which 
he  delivered  in  the  year  1818.  "I  will  not,"  he  says,  "  make  more 
of  him  than  he  is  to  me.  I  know  him.  He  has  a  natural  power 
which,  in  its  artlessness,  penetrates  where  much  art  has  often  before 
my  own  eyes  failed  to  enter.  Schmid  threw  a  hard  shell  about  the 
kernel  of  my  vanishing  labors,  and  saved  me." 

Niederer  also  acknowledged  in  the  fullest  measure,  the  ability  and 
activity  of  Schmid.  Like  Pestalozzi,  Niederer  saw  in  him  a  most 
indefatigable  teacher  of  mathematics  and  drawing,  who,  by  his  ex- 
ample, as  well  as  by  severe  censure,  could  incite  the  remaining  teach- 
ers to  conscientious  activity  ;  he  also  saw  in  him  a  man  who,  being  a 
pupil  of  Pestalozzi,  was  regarded  as  one  of  the  fruits  of  the  method, 
and  who  consequently  impressed  foreign  visitors  with  a  favorable  idea 
of  it.  Thus  it  came  that,  in  the  year  1814,  he  hoped  every  thing  from 
a  reconciliation  with  Schmid.  But  how  deceived  he  found  himself, 
when  Pestalozzi  gave  into  Schmid's  hands  the  sceptre  over  the  entire 
institution. 

Blochmann,  too,  in  his  complaint,  acknowledges  Schmid's  "activity, 
perseverance,  endurance,  punctuality,  administrative  ability,  his  meri- 
torious services  in  establishing  greater  order  in  the  institution,  his 
skill  in  teaching  the  elementary  branches  of  mathematics — a  rare 
talent."  All  these  were  qualities  which  neither  Pestalozzi  nor  Niederer 
possessed,  and  which,  therefore,  marked  out  Schmid  as  an  indispensa- 
ble member  of  the  staff  of  teachers.  But,  if  Blochmann  and  the 
other  teachers  who  signed  the  complaint  acknowledged  this,  why  did 
they  press  for  Schmid's  removal  ?  Because,  they  answer,  in  that 
document,  "  the  source  of  all  that  Schmid  does  is  complete  selfish- 
ness, ability  without  humility,  without  love,  without  self-denial,  sound- 
ing brass,  a  tinkling  cymbal,  and  Schmid  himself  is  wise  as  the  serpent, 
but  not  harmless  as  the  dove." 

In  a  letter,  (19th  March,  1818,)  to  Pestalozzi,  Niederer  reproaches 
him  with  having  overrated  the  ability  of  Schmid,  and  ability  generally. 


108  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

"Ruin,"  he  says,  "entered  your  institution,  when,  dazzled  and  led 
away  by  individual  instances  of  brilliant  talents  and  results,  you 
ceased  to  bestow  any  particular  attention  on  that  which  by  its  nature 
can  work  only  in  silence,  although  it  stands  higher  than  talent,  and 
alone  can  render  the  development  of  talent  possible ;  when  you  be- 
gan so  to  act  as  if  you  owed  every  thing  to  that  with  which  you  could 
make  a  display,  and  nothing  to  that  which  was  not  suited  to  this  pur- 
pose. Under  this  fundamental  error,  I  say  more,  under  this  funda- 
mental injustice,  the  mathematical  side  of  the  method  and  the  insti- 
tution was  made  prominent,  as  if  that  singly  and  solely  were  the 
essence  of  the  method  and  the  salvation  of  humanity.  Low  and 
one-sided  qualities  were  honored  at  expense  of  the  higher  ones. 
The  qualities  of  good  temper,  fidelity,  love,  if  they  were  not  joined 
with  those  external  qualities,  were  slighted  and  depreciated  in  the 
persons  in  whom  they  existed.  In  the  kind  of  praise  which  you 
gave  to  the  manual  dexterity  of  utterly  inexperienced  youths  in 
particular  departments,  you  placed  this  dexterity  above  intelligence, 
knowledge  and  experience." 

Let  us  now  return  to  the  history  of  the  institution. 

In  the  Easter  of  1816,  M.  Jullien,  already  mentioned,  came  to 
Yverdun,  bringing  twenty-four  pupils  with  him  from  France  ;  but, 
annoyed,  it  is  said,  by  Schmid,  he  quitted  the  institution  the  very  next 
year. 

As  already  stated,  Niederer  separated  from  the  institution  in  1817, 
from  which  time  he  conducted  the  girls'  school  only,  in  company  with 
his  wife.  In  the  same  year,  a  most  ignominious  and  lamentable  law- 
suit, which  lasted  seven  years,  arose  concerning  the  pecuniary  affairs 
of  this  school,  between  Pestalozzi  and  Schmid,  on  one  side,  and 
Niederer,  on  the  other.  "It  was  in  July,  1817,"  says  Pestalozzi, 
"that  a  letter  referring  to  that  quarrel  suddenly  threw  me  into  a  state 
of  inward  rage,  which  was  accompanied  by  an  outbreak  of  real  de- 
lirium, and  placed  me  in  danger  of  completely  losing  my  reason,  and 
sinking  into  utter  insensibility."  Schmid  took  the  old  man  to  Biilet, 
on  the  Jura,  whose  cooling  heights  acted  wholesomely  on  the  endan- 
gered state  of  his  nerves.  There  he  poured  out  his  sufferings  in 
poems,  in  which  his  soul,  now  caught  in  the  trammels  of  the  most 
painful  and  ignoble  relations,  utters  with  wailing,  its  aspirations  after 
heavenly  freedom.  Here  is  one  of  those  poems : — 

Fair  bow,  that  smil'st  amid  the  storm, 
Thoutellest  of  the  bliss  of  God  1 
"With  those  soft  beams  of  many  hues, 
O  shine  in  this  afflicted  heart 
Amid  its  wild  and  life-long  storm ! 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  JQ9 

Tell  me  of  brighter  morn  to  come, 

0  tell  me  of  a  better  day, 

Pair  bow,  that  joinest  earth  to  heav'n  I 

Through  all  the  dark  and  stormy  days, 
The  Lord  hath  been  a  rock  to  me, 
My  soul  shall  praise  His  holy  name 
Must  I  be  call'd  from  this  fair  earth, 
Ere  thou  appearest  in  my  heart, 
And  bringest  with  thee  heavenly  joys 
And  that  long  wished  for  better  day : 
Must  I  drink  out  the  bitter  cup—- 
The cup  of  fierce  contending  strife 
And  enmity  not  reconciled — 
Till  I  have  drained  the  deepest  dregs: 
Must  I  from  hence  depart, 
Ere  peace,  the  peace  I  seek,  is  found? 

1  own  my  burthen  of  offense, 
My  many  weaknesses  I  own, 
And  with  affection  and  with  tears, 
All  my  offenders  I  forgive ; 

But  death  will  bring  me  peace, 

And  after  death's  long  night  of  rest, 

A  better  day  will  dawn  for  me  I 

Thou  herald  of  that  better  day, 

How  lovely  then  wilt  thou  appear 

Above  my  still  and  lonesome  grave : 

Fair  bow  that  shin'st  like  Hope  through  tears. 

Like  snow  new  fallen  on  the  ground, 
Like  those  bright  flakes  of  winter-tide 
Which,  beaming  lovely  in  the  sun, 
Sank  into  that  new  open'd  grave, 
Where  lay  the  partner  of  my  days : 
Fair  bow,  that  shin'st  with  heaven's  light, 
Thus  lovely,  in  the  hour  of  death, 
Do  thou  appear  once  more  to  me. 
Through  all  the  dark  and  stormy  days, 
The  Lord  hath  been  a  rock  to  me  1 
My  soul  shall  praise  his  holy  name ! 

An  attempt,  which  Pestalozzi  made  in  1817,  to  enter  into  connec- 
tion with  Fellenberg,  was  unsuccessful.  In  1818,  Schmid  made  ar 
arrangement  with  Cotta,  (the  great  Leipsig  publisher,)  for  the  publica- 
tion of  a  complete  edition  of  Pestalozzi's  works ;  subscriptions  to  a 
considerable  amount  soon  flowed  in.  The  emperor  of  Russia  sub- 
scribed 5,000  roubles  ;  the  king  of  Prussia,  400  dollars ;  the  king  of 
Bavaria,  700  guilders.  Thereupon,  Pestalozzi's  hopes  revived.  In 
a  remarkable  address,  already  mentioned,  which  he  delivered  on  his 
seventy-third  birth-day,  the  12th  of  January,  1818,  he  stated  that  he 
should  appropriate  to  educational  purposes,  50,000  French  livres, 
which  the  subscription  would  yield. 

In  the  same  address,  Pestalozzi  speaks  freely  on  the  subject  of  his 
relations  to  Niederer  and  Schmid,  and  justifies  himself  for  having 
separated  from  the  former  and  joined  with  the  latter.  He  hits 
off  Niederer  admirably  when  he  says :  "  I  am  conscious  of  a  high  and 


HO  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

fervent  love  for  him.  Only  he  should  not  require  me  to  value  in 
him  what  I  do  not  understand ;  he  should  ascribe  it  to  the  weakness 
of  my  head,  not  to  the  hardness  of  my  heart,  if  I  fail  to  do  so,  and 
should  not  on  that  account  pronounce  me  ungrateful.  But  what  shall 
I  say  ?  Here  lies  the  very  ground  of  complaint  against  me,  namely, 
that  I  am  no  longer  capable  of  following  the  spirit  of  my  endeavors, 
and  that  through  my  incapacity,  I  cripple  and  destroy  the  strength  of 
those  who  are  further  advanced  in  that  spirit  than  myself.  It  is 
an  old  complaint,  that  my  spirit  has  left  me ;  that  I  have  outlived  my- 
self, and  that  the  truth  and  the  right  of  my  labors  have  passed  from 
mine  into  other  hands.  I  know  well,  also,  and  I  feel  it  deeply,  that  I 
do  not  possess,  in  the  least  degree,  some  qualifications  which  are  es- 
sential to  the  furtherance  of  my  views  ;  on  the  other  hand  I  know 
just  as  certainly,  that  all  those  qualifications  which  I  formerly  pos- 
sessed, I  still  feel  myself  to  possess  in  some  vitality,  and  with  an 
impulse  to  apply  them  to  use." 

Of  this  the  address  affords  sufficient  proofs ;  I  will  quote  some 
passages. 

"  Man  has  a  conscience.  The  voice  of  God  speaks  in  every  man,  and  leaves  no 
one  unconvinced  as  to  what  is  good,  and  what  bad;  what  is  right  and  what 
wrong." 

"  Contemplate  man  in  the  entire  range  of  his  development.  See,  he  grows, 
he  is  educated,  he  is  trained.  He  grows  by  the  strength  of  his  own  self;  he 
grows  by  the  strength  of  his  very  being.  He  is  educated  by  accident,  by  the 
accidental  that  lies  in  his  condition,  in  his  circumstances,  and  in  his  relations. 
He  is  trained  by  art  and  by  the  will  of  man.  The  growth  of  man  and  his  pow- 
ers is  God's  doing.  It  proceeds  according  to  eternat  and  divine  laws.  The  edu- 
cation of  man  is  accidental  and  dependent  on  the  varying  circumstances  in  which 
a  man  finds  himself  placed.  The  training  of  man  is  moral.  Only  by  the  ac- 
cordance of  the  influences  of  education  and  training  with  the  eternal  laws  of 
human  growth  is  man  really  educated  and  trained ;  by  contradiction  betwee_ 
the  means  of  his  education  and  training  and  those  eternal  laws,  man  is  mis- 
educated  and  mis-trained." 

Pestalozzi  gives  a  striking  delineation  of  the  contrast  between  the 
old  time  and  the  new. 

"The  time  in  which  we  live,  is  really  a  time  of  excessive  artificial  refinement, 
in  contradistinction  to  a  high  and  pure  sense  of  innocence,  love,  and  faith,  and 
that  powerful  attachment  to  truth  and  right  which  springs  from  these  virtues. 
Who  among  us,  if  he  be  not  an  alien  that  neither  knows  the  present  time  and 
its  spirit,  nor  has  searched  into  the  time  of  our  fathers  and  its  spirit,  but  must 
acknowledge  that  the  time  of  our  fathers  was  a  better  time,  their  spirit  a  better 
spirit ;  that  their  sincerity  of  purpose  had  its  foundations  laid  immeasurably 
deeper,  in  the  religion  of  the  heart,  in  strong  earnestness  in  domestic  and  civil 
life,  and  in  the  daily  exercise  of  industry  in  the  good  works  of  a  simple  and  sat- 
isfying professional  life,  than  can  possibly  be  the  case  in  our  paralysing  refine- 
ment of  the  powers  of  body  and  soul.  Our  fathers  were  cheerful,  reasonable, 
and  benevolent,  in  all  simplicity.  Their  circumstances  were  peculiarly  fitted  to 
lead  them  daily  and  hourly  in  all  innocence,  in  faith,  and  in  love,  to  be  good- 
tempered,  reflective,  and  industrious ;  but  our  artificial  refinement  has  rendered 
us  disgusted  with  our  fathers'  mode  of  life,  and  with  the  sources  of  their  moral, 
domestic,  and  political  elevation.  We  have  almost  entirely  departed  from  their 
spirit  and  their  mode  of  life.  But  it  is  for  this  reason  that  we  have  sunk  so  low 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 


Ill 


in  respect  to  the  education  of  the  people.     "We  have  the  semblance  of  faith,  love, 
and  wisdom,  but  not  the  qualities  themselves ;  and  we  live  in  a  delusion,  really 
without  the  virtues  of  our  fathers,  while  they,  though  possessing  those  virtues, 
were  by  no  means  satisfied  with  themselves,  as  we  are.     The  good  and  pioua 
foundation  which  our  fathers  had  in  their  mode  of  life  itself  for  their  views,  feel- 
ings, opinions,  and  usages  generally,  and  particularly  in  respect  to  the  training 
of  children  and  the  relief  of  the  poor,  has  sunk  under  our  feet  through  the  de- 
ception of  our  present  artificial  and  frivolous  mode  of  life.     "We  are  no  longer 
what  we  were,  and  we  have  even  lost  the  feeling  that  we  ought  to  become 
again  in  spirit  and  in  truth  what  we  were.     While  we  praise  our  fathers  with 
our  mouths,  we  are  in  heart  far  from  them,  and  in  our  doings  we  stand  at  the 
very  antipodes  of  them.     We  have  substituted  for  their  ability  to  do  what  was 
necessary,  and  their  ignorance  of  what  was  useless,  a  large  acquaintance  with 
what  is  useless   and  an  inability  to   do  what  is  necessary.     Instead  of  their 
healthy  spirit,  well  exercised  in  mother-wit,  we  have  forms,  not  so  much  of 
thinking  as  of  verbal  expressions  about  what  has  been  thought,  which  suck  the 
blood  out  of  good  sense,  like  a  marten  that  fixes  itself  upon  the  neck  of  a  poor 
dove.     We  no  longer  know  our  neighbors,  our  fellow  citizens,  or  even  our  poor 
relations ;  but  we  make  up  for  it  by  reading  the  newspapers  and  periodicals,  by 
learning  the  genealogical  register  of  the  kings  of  the  world,  the  anecdotes  of 
courts,  of  the  theatre,  and  of  capital  cities,  and  we  raise  ourselves  to  a  daily 
change  in  our  political  and  religious  opinions,  as  in  our  clothes,  running,  on  one 
side,  from  infidelity  to  capucinade,  and  from  capucinade  to  infidelity,  just  as,  on 
the  other  side,  we  run  from  sans-cullottism  to  tight-lacing  and  leading  strings. 
Our  fathers  cultivated  a  general,  simple,  and  powerful  intellect ;  but  few  of  them 
troubled  themselves  with  researches  into  higher  truths,  which  are  difficult  to 
fathom :  we  do  very  little  indeed  toward  rendering  ourselves  capable  of  cultiva- 
ting a  general  and  profound  spirit  of  thought  and  research :  but  we  all  learn  to 
talk  a  great  deal  about  sublime  and  almost  unfathomable  truths,  and  strive  very 
zealously  to  get  to  read  the  results  of  the  profoundest  thinking  in  the  popular 
descriptions  of  almanacs  and  daily  pamphlets,  and  to  put  them  into  the  mouth 
of  people  generally.     Among  our  fathers,  every  honest  man  sought  to  do  one 
thing  well  at  least,  namely,  the  work  of  his  calling,  and  every  man  might  with  honor 
learn  every  trade ;  now  our  notables  are  mostly  born  to  their  callings.     Num- 
berless individuals  are  ashamed  of  the  rank  and  profession  of  their  fathers,  and 
believe  themselves  to  be  called  to  pry  into  and  carp  at  the  professional  knowl- 
edge of  all  ranks ;  and  the  habit  of  prating  about  all  professions  and  discharg- 
ing one's  own  imperfectly  is  becoming  more  general  every  day,  among  both  the 
notable  and  unnotable  men  of  our  time.     All  spirit  of  political  strength  has  fled 
from  amongst  us.     In  the  present  state  of  society  we  no  longer  ask  what  we 
really  are,  but  what  we  possess  and  what  we  know,  and  how  we  may  set  out 
all  our  possessions  and  knowledge  for  show,  put  them  up  for  sale,  and  barter 
them  for  the  means  of  feasting  ourselves,  so  that  we  may  tickle  our  palates 
with  the  refined  enjoyments  of  all  the  five  divisions  of  the  globe,  whose  appe- 
tites must  by  such  conduct  be  almost  inevitably  engendered  in  us.     And  when 
we  have  in  this  way  succeeded  in  rendering  ourselves  powerless  and  degraded 
in  body  and  soul,  in  respect  to  the  pure  claims  of  the  humanity  of  our  nature, 
and  of  the  eternal  and  divine  essence  which  lies  at  its  foundation, — then,  in  the 
state  of  debility  and  giddiness  into  which  the  fever  has  thrown  us,  we  further 
seek  to  force  up  the  appearance  of  a  character  whose  truth  and  purity  we  en- 
tirely lack.     In  this  state,  we  seek  to  cover  over  the  outward  appearances  of 
our  debility  and  desolation  by  a  violent  employment  of  the  means  of  adjustment 
and  concealment,  which  kill  heart  and  spirit  and  humanity ;  and  verily  we  have 
sunk  to  the  employment  of  such  means  in  many  matters  connected  with  the  ed- 
ucation of  the  people  and  the  relief  of  the  poor.     Thus  it  is  that  we  kill,  in 
ourselves,  the  very  essence  of  the  powers  of  the  soul,  those  human  gifts  divine ; 
and  then,  when  a  shadow  of  the  powers  which  we  have  killed  flutters  in  us, 
-we  ornament  the  works  of  its  fluttering  with  golden  frames,  and  hang  them  up 
in  splendid  apartments,  whose  shining  floors  are  unable  to  bear  any  of  the  good 
works  of  the  ordinary  life  of  man." 

In  another  place,  Pestalozzi  says :  "  The  gardener  plants  and  waters, 
but  God  givetii  the  increase."     It  is  not  the  educator  that  implants 


112  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

any  faculty  in  man  ;  it  is  not  the  educator  that  gives  breath  and  life 
to  any  faculty :  he  only  takes  care  that  no  external  influence  shall 
fetter  and  disturb  the  natural  course  of  the  development  of  man's  in- 
dividual faculties.  "The  moral,  the  spiritual,  and  the  artistic 
capabilities  of  our  nature  must  grow  out  of  themselves,  and  by  no 
means  out  of  the  results  produced  by  art,  which  has  been  mixed  up 
with  their  education.  Faith  must  be  called  forth  again  by  faith,  and 
not  by  the  knowledge  of  what  is  believed ;  thinking  must  be  called 
forth  again  by  thinking,  and  not  by  the  knowledge  of  what  is  thought, 
or  of  the  laws  of  thinking ;  love  must  be  called  forth  again  by  loving, 
and  not  by  the  knowledge  of  what  is  loveable  or  of  love  itself;  and  art 
must  be  called  forth  again  by  ability,  and  not  by  endless  talk  about 
ability." 

The  reader  can  judge  from  the  passages  just  cited  whether  any  de- 
gree of  youthful  freshness  still  lingered  in  the  mind  and  heart  of  the 
old  man  of  seventy-three. 

But  his  "  unrivaled  incapacity  to  govern,"  as  he  himself  calls  it, 
did  not  forsake  him.  He  established  a  poor  school  in  1818  at  Clindy, 
in  the  vicinity  of  Yverdun ;  a  commencement  was  made  with  twelve 
boys.  "  They  were  to  be  brought  up  as  poor  boys,"  says  Pestalozzi, 
u  and  receive  that  kind  of  instruction  and  training  which  is  suitable 
for  the  poor."  But  after  a  short  time,  children  were  admitted  to  board 
in  the  establishment,  at  a  fee  of  twelve  louis  d'or  per  annum  ;  and  in 
a  few  months  the  number  of  these  pupils  rose  to  thirty.  It  may  be 
easily  imagined  that  the  presence  of  paying  boarders  would  of  itself 
destroy  the  character  of  the  place  as  a  school  for  the  poor.  But  this 
result  was  occasioned  in  a  still  higher  degree  by  some  remarkably 
stupid  experiments  in  teaching.  An  Englishman,*  of  the  name 
of  Greaves,  visited  Yverdun  in  1819 ;  he  offered  to  teach  these  poor 
Swiss  children  English  without  remuneration,  and  his  offer  was  ac- 
cepted. On  this  step  Pestalozzi  himself  remarks :  "  This  created  an 
impression,  which,  considering  the  original  destination  of  these  chil- 
dren, led  us  very  far  astray."  To  the  instruction  in  English  was 
added  soon  after  instruction  in  French  and  Latin.  Pestalozzi  says, 
the  poor  children  had  made  extraordinary  progress  in  the  elementary 
subjects.  He  adds,  nevertheless,  "  I  had  no  longer  an  establishment 
for  the  poor ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  two  scientific  ones,  which  I  could 
not  now  allow  to  remain  separated.  Thus  the  so-called  poor  school 
at  Clindy  was  amalgamated  with  the  institution  at  Yverdun."  Ac- 
cording to  Pestalozzi's  account,  the  poor  scholars  were  "models 

•  A  second  Englishman  entered  the  establishment  the  same  year,  as  the  religious  instructor 
of  the  English  pupils  who  had  been  admitted.  Later.  "  above  half  a  dozen  poor  children  " 
were  even  sent  from  England  to  the  school ! 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI..  113 

worthy  of  imitation "  to  the  pupils  of  the  institution,  especially  in 
their  acquirements.  Many  of  them  were  employed  as  teachers. 
"  The  instruction  which  was  given  by  the  pupils  of  our  poor  school, 
(says  he,)  was  preferred,  on  account  of  its  solid  and  natural  character 
to  that  of  the  most  accomplished  among  the  elder  teachers  of  our 
house."  (!)  They  threw  their  strength  chiefly  into  arithmetic  and 
geometry.  Is  it  to  be  wondered  at,  that  these  poor  children  soon 
began  to  place  themselves  on  a  level  with  the  children  of  the  institu- 
tion, and  liked  playing  with  them  out  of  school  hours  better  than 
chopping  wood  and  carting  manure ; — that,  instructed  in  three  foreign 
languages,  they  did  not  like  the  idea  of  becoming  masters  of  poor 
schools,  and  of  having  learnt  Latin  to  no  purpose  ? 

Pestalozzi  acknowledged,  when  it  was  too  late,  "  that  the  estab- 
lishment had  taken  such  a  direction  that  it  was  no  longer  to  be 
looked  upon  as  a  poor  school,  but  as  a  school  for  imparting  the  ele- 
ments of  a  scientific  education."  The  particular  reason  of  the  failure 
had  been  "that  these  children  were  led  into  acquirements,  habits, 
pretensions,  dreams,  and  appetites,  which  did  not  suit  the  character 
of  their  original  destination,  and  even  tended  to  unfit  them  for  it." 

Pestalozzi's  unhappy  disputes  with  Niederer  and  others  went  on 
uninterruptedly  during  this  time.  At  last  a  reconciliation  was 
brought  about  through  the  noble  exertions  of  deputy  governor  Du 
Thou.  On  the  31st  of  December,  1823,  Niederer  wrote  an  apology 
to  Schmid  in  the  name  of  Kriisi  and  himself,  in  which,  at  the  same 
time,  it  was  said  that  any  future  dispute  should  be  settled  by  an  arbiter. 

Unfortunately,  newspapers  and  controversial  writings  of  those 
years  have  made  the  public  only  too  well  acquainted  with  this  dis- 
pute. Pestalozzi's  worst  enemies  could  not  have  conceived  any  thing 
that  would  have  been  more  calculated  to  damp  the  public  enthusiasm 
for  him. 

Who  would  like  to  undertake  the  task  of  placing  before  readers 
the  details  of  these  unfortunate  occurrences,  especially  when  it  is  con- 
sidered that  they  almost  exclusively  concerned  private  interests  ?  On 
February  1st,  1823,  Pestalozzi  wrote  to  Niederer  a  conciliatory  letter, 
which  shines  forth  in  the  midst  of  this  lawsuit  like  a  brilliant  gem 
out  of  the  mire.  I  give  the  following  passage  from  this  letter  with 
pleasure : — 

"  DEAR  MR.  NIEDERER,* — Call  to  mind  what  we  once  hoped  from  each  other 
and  what  we  were  to  each  other.  I  would  again  hope  from  you  what  I  formerly 
hoped,  and  I  would  again  be  to  you  what  I  formerly  was.  But  we  must  make 
the  way  to  this  possible  for  each  other ;  we  must  help  each  other  to  clear  the 
way  to  it,  each  from  the  point  on  which  he  stands.  Let  us  do  this.  Above  all, 

•  In  November,  1824,  the  lawsuit  which  has  been  mentioned  was  terminated  bj 
arbitration. 

8 


114  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

let  us,  without  circumlocution  and  without  condition,  forgive  each  other,  and 
unite  with  a  pure  intention  in  true  love,  in  true  friendship,  and  in  an  under- 
taking which  will  be  for  our  mutual  happiness.  Niederer,  become  aguin  as  far 
as  you  can  my  old  Niederer — such  as  you  were  twenty  years  ago.  Madame 
Niederer,  be  also  to  me  again  something  of  what  you  were  then.  I  will  readily 
be  to  both  of  you  again,  as  far  as  I  can,  what  I  then  was.  How  I  long  for  the 
time  when  our  hearts  shall  bring  us  to  ourselves  again,  and  when,  in  the  path 
of  real  self-knowledge  we  shall  attain  to  love,  which  is  equally  our  duty  as 
Christians,  and  the  pressing  need  of  our  condition.  Oh  1  Niederer,  how  I  long 
for  the  time  when  strengthened  and  sanctified  by  this  renewed  love,  we  shall  be 
able  to  go  once  more  to  the  Holy  Sacrament,  when  the  festival  comes  round, 
without  having  to  fear  that  the  entire  commune  in  which  we  live,  scandalized 
by  our  conduct,  will  shudder  at  our  coming  to  the  Lord's  table,  and  will  cast 
upon  us  looks  of  indignation  as  well  as  pity.  Oh  I  Niederer,  the  path  of  this 
renewed  love  is  the  only  one  which  will  lead  to  true  honor,  as  it  is  also  the  only 
one  which  will  lead  to  the  restoration  of  a  lost  semblance  of  honor.  Oh! 
Niederer,  think  not  that  the  tricks  and  chicanery  of  law  can  ever  bring  us  to  the 
pinnacle  of  honor  to  which  we  can  raise  ourselves  by  the  restoration  of  our  love. 
My  old  friend,  let  us  make  clean  the  inside  of  the  platter,  before  we  trouble 
ourselves  about  the  false  glitter  of  the  outside." 

These  lamentable  lawsuits  had  naturally  the  worst  influence  on  the 
hybrid  institution.  Pestalozzi  felt  this  most  painfully,  and  thought 
that  his  poor  school  would  succeed,  if  he  could  only  transfer  it  from 
unlucky  Yverdun  to  Neuhof,  in  the  canton  of  Argovia — the  same 
Neuhof  where,  many  years  before,  he  had  made  his  first  important  edu- 
cational experiments.  He  had  a  new  house  built  there  for  the  purpose. 

Each  of  the  poor  children  who  had  been  admitted  into  the  school 
had  bound  himself  to  remain  in  it  five  years,  from  1818  till  1823.  The 
five  years  ran  out.  Pestalozzi  confidently  hoped  that  many  of  these 
children  would  follow  him  to  Neuhof,  and  form  the  nucleus  of  the 
new  establishment.  But  not  one  remained.  As.  I  have  already 
remarked,  they  had  imbibed  grander  ideas  from  the  instruction  which 
they  had  enjoyed,  and  they  sought  to  make  their  fortune  in  other 
ways.  "  They  considered  it,"  says  Pestalozzi,  "  beneath  their  dignity 
to  be  appointed  teachers  in  a  Pestalozzian  poor  school  at  Neuhof." 
When  at  last  even  a  favorite  pupil  of  his  rejected  all  his  offers,  and 
went  away  clandestinely  from  Yverdun,  the  old  man's  heart  was  full. 
"The  illusion,  in  my  mind,"  he  says,  "as  to  the  possibility  of  trans- 
planting to  Neuhof  an  establishment  in  Yverdun  of  which  not  an 
inch  was  in  reality  any  longer  mine,  was  now  entirely  dispelled.  To 
resign  myself  to  this  conviction,  required  me  to  do  no  less  than  aban- 
don all  my  hopes  and  aims  in  regard  to  this  project,  as  for  me  com- 
pletely unattainable.  I  did  so  at  last,  and  on  March  17th,  1824,  I 
announced  my  total  inability  further  to  fulfill  the  expectations  and 
hopes  which  I  had  excited,  by  my  projected  poor  school,  in  the  hearts 
of  so  many  philanthropists  and  friends  of  education." 

At  length,  in  the  year  1825,  Pestalozzi  also  broke  up  the  institution, 
after  it  had  stood  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  ;  and  he  returned,  an  old 
man  of  eighty  years,  and  tired  of  life,  to  Neuhof,  where,  exactly  half 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  115 

a  century  before,  he  bad  begun  his  first  poor  school.  "  Verily,"  he 
says,  "it  was  as  if  I  was  putting  an  end  to  my  life  itself  by  this 
return,  so  much  pain  did  it  give  me." 

Pestalozzi  had  but  one  child,  a  son,  who  was  born  in  1770,  and  died 
at  the  early  age  of  twenty-four,  leaving  a  son  himself.*  This  grand- 
son of  Pestalozzi  was  in  possession  of  the  estate  of  Neuhof ;  to  him 
the  old  man  went. 

In  these  last  years  of  his  life,  he  wrote  the  "  Song  of  the  Dying 
Swan  "  and  the  "  Fortunes  of  my  Life."  He  looked  back  with  deep 
pain  on  so  many  shipwrecked  enterprises,  and  acknowledged  that  the 
blame  was  his,  as  the  wreck  had  been  brought  on  by  his  incompetency 
to  manage  the  helm.  He  speaks,  as  we  have  seen,  with  equal  candor 
of  his  fellow-workers. 

These  last  writings  of  Pestalozzi  have  been  regarded  by  many  as 
the  melancholy  and  languid  outpourings  of  the  heart  of  a  dying  old 
man.  As  far  as  concerns  the  old  man's  judgments  on  the  institution, 
as  it  was  at  the  time  of  my  stay  at  Yverdun,  I  have  already  remarked 
that  I  consider  them  for  the  most  part  highly  truthful,  and  as  afford- 
ing evidence  that  he  was  not  deficient  in  manly  clearness  and 
penetration  even  in  his  old  age. 

In  May  of  the  year  1825,  he  was  elected  President  of  tjie  Helvetian 
Society  of  Shinznach,  of  which  he  was  the  oldest  member.  The  fol- 
lowing year  he  delivered  a  lecture  before  the  Education  Society  of 
Brugg,  on,  "  The  simplest  means  which  art  can  employ  to  educate 
the  child,  from  the  cradle,  to  the  sixth  year,  in  the  domestic  circle." 
Thus  the  gentle  influence  of  home  education  remained  to  the  last  the 
object  of  his  love,  as  it  had  been  fifty-six  years  before,  when  he  wrote 
"  Leonard  and  Gertrude." 

On  the  21st  of  July,  1826,  Pestalozzi,  in  company  with  Schmid, 
visited  the  establishment  of  the  excellent  Zeller  in  Bruggen.  The 
children  received  him  with  singing.  An  oak  wreath  was  handed  to 
him,  but  he  did  not  accept  it:  "Not  to  me,"  he  said,  "but  to 
Innocence  belongs  the  wreath."  The  children  sang  to  him  the 
song  by  Goethe  which  he  has  introduced  into  "  Leonard  and  Gertrude." 

Thou  art  from  highest  skies, 
Every  storm  and  sorrow  stilling ; 
Hearts  that  doubled  anguish  tries 
Doubly  with  thy  sweetness  filling ; 
On  the  wave  of  passion  driven, 
Oh,  how  longs  my  soul  for  rest ! 
Peace  of  Heaven 
Come,  oh  come  within  my  breast. 

Tears  choked  the  voice  of  the  old  man. 

*  The  widow,  an  excellent  woman,  subsequently  married  a  Mr.  Kuster,  and  remaine*. 
attached  to  Pestalozzi  with  true  affection. 


HQ  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

From  his  youth,  Pestalozzi  had  been  weakly  in  constitution,  and  he 
had  repeatedly  suffered  severe  attacks  of  illness.  In  the  year  1 806, 
he  was  suddenly  knocked  down  in  the  street  by  the  pole  of  a  carriage, 
and  trampled  under  foot  by  the  horses.  "  It  is  a  great  wonder,"  he 
said  in  an  address  on  New  Year's  Day,  1808,  ''that  I  was  saved  from 
under  the  horses'  feet.  See,  they  tore  the  clothes  from  off  my  back, 
but  did  not  touch  my  body." 

In  the  year  1812,  he  suffered  very  severely  for  a  long  time  from 
accidentally  running  a  knitting  needle  into  his  ear. 

But,  notwithstanding  slight  ailments  and  dangerous  accidents,  his 
life  was  prolonged  to  a  very  advanced  age. 

At  length  he  approached  the  end  of  his  earthly  existence.  Some 
time  before  his  death,  he  said :  "  I  forgive  my  enemies ;  may  they 
find  peace  now  that  I  go  to  eternal  rest.  I  should  liked  to  have  lived 
another  month,  to  have  completed  my  last  labors;  but  I  again 
thank  God,  who  in  His  Providence  calls  me  away  from  this 
earthly  scene.  And  you,  my  children,  remain  in  quiet  attachment 
to  one  another,  and  seek  for  happiness  in  the  domestic  circle."  Soon 
after,  he  breathed  his  last.  He  had  lain  ill  only  a  few  days.  On  the 
15th  of  February,  1827,  he  had  been  removed  from  his  country 
house  to  the  town  of  Brugg,  in  order  that  he  might  be  nearer  to  his 
physician;  on  the  morning  of  the  17th  he  died,  after  violent  parox- 
ysms of  fever;  and  on  the  19th  he  was  buried.  His  corpse  was 
carried  past  the  new  poor  school  which  he  had  begun  to  build,  but 
could  not  complete,  and  was  interred  with  a  quiet  and  modest  funeral 
service  at  the  village  of  Birr.  Few  strangers  attended  his  funeral, 
for  the  snow  lay  thick  on  the  ground,  and  his  interment  took  place 
sooner  than  might  have  been  expected ;  the  news  of  his  death  had 
scarcely  been  received  in  the  canton  of  Argovia.  Schoolmasters  and 
children  from  the  surrounding  villages  sang  their  thanks  to  the 
departed  in  artless  strains  over  his  grave.* 

Pestalozzi  rests  from  the  labors  of  his  toilsome  life. 

At  the  grave  a  Sabbath  stillness  sets  in ;  we  look  back  upon  the 
past,  but,  at  the  same  time,  we  look  forward  into  the  eternal  life  of 
the  departed,  and  ask  whether,  in  time,  he  seriously  prepared  himself 
for  eternity — whether  all  the  labors  of  his  life  were  done  in  the  Lord, 
and  whether  he  died  in  the  Lord. 

Not  as  severe  judges  do  we  ask,  but  in  all  the  humility  of  co- 
redeemed  sinful  fellow-men  ;  we  ask  with  the  fond  wish  that  he  may 
be  blessed  eternally. 


*  Heussler. 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  itf 

In  a  letter  written  in  the  year  1793,  Pestalozzi  says,  "Wavering 
between  feelings,  which  drew  me  toward  religion,  and  opinions,  which 
led  me  away  from  it,  I  went  the  dead  way  of  my  time  ;  I  let  the  es- 
sential part  of  religion  grow  cold  in  my  inmost  heart,  without  really 
deciding  against  religion." 

That  is  the  judgment  which  he  pronounced  upon  himself  in  his 
forty-eighth  year ;  at  the  time  of  Robespierre,  when  the  earthy  polit- 
ical element  reigned  to  such  a  degree  in  the  minds  of  men,  that  no 
quiet  abode  remained  for  the  religious  element. 

The  "  Evening  Hour  of  a  Hermit,"  written  thirteen  years  earlier, 
when  the  world  was  more  tranquil,  and  as  yet  not  off  its  hinges,  con- 
tains passages  which  are  penetrated  with  true  Christian  unction.  To 
these  belongs  especially  the  concluding  passage  of  the  whole,  already 
quoted,  in  which  Pestalozzi  speaks  of  Christ  as  "  the  Son  of  God, 
who  with  suffering  and  death  has  restored  to  mankind  the  universally 
lost  feeling  of  filial  love  toward  God — the  Redeemer  of  the  World 
— the  sacrificed  Priest  of  the  Lord — the  Mediator  between  God  and 
sinful  mankind  ;"  and  of  his  doctrine  as  "  the  revelation  of  God  the 
Father  to  the  lost  race  of  his  children." 

But  other  passages  of  this  paper,  enticing  as  they  sound,  are  at 
variance  with  essential  doctrines  of  Christianity.  Thus  the  one  in 
which  Pestalozzi  says,  "  Faith  in  God,  thou  art  the  pure  sense  of 
simplicity — the  ear  of  innocence  listening  to  the  voice  of  nature, 
which  proclaims  that  God  is  father." 

Where  is  the  ear  of  innocence  to  be  found  ?  The  Scripture  saith  : 
"  There  is  none  righteous,  no  not  one  :  There  is  none  that  understand- 
eth,  there  is  none  that  seeketh  after  God.  They  are  all  gone  out  of 
the  way,  they  are  together  become  unprofitable ;  there  is  none  that 
doeth  good,  no,  not  one."  (Romans  iii.,  10,  11, 12.) 

Where  is  the  ear  of  innocence  ?  If  it  were  to  be  found  among 
men,  then  it  might  certainly  hear  a  voice  of  nature,  proclaiming  that 
God  is  father.  In  that  case,  the  heathen  might  also  have  prayed, 
"  Our  Father."  But  nowhere  do  we  find  the  slightest  evidence  that 
the  ancients  loved  their  gods,  not  to  say  God,  with  filial  love. 

And,  could  man  by  nature  love  God,  to  what  purpose  were  Christ 
the  restorer  of  the  lost  filial  love  of  mankind  ?  But  this  very  ex- 
pression itself  appears  to  me  to  be  almost  a  euphemism  for  "  The 
I»ORD  hath  laid  on  him  the  iniquity  of  us  all."  (Isaiah  liii.,  6.) 

We  saw,  in  considering  the  book,  "  How  Gertrude  teaches  her 
Children,"  how  deep  an  influence  Pestalozzi's  notion  of  the  innocence 
of  children  exercised  upon  his  educational  theory ;  like  Rousseau,  he 
wanted  to  gather  figs  of  thistles.  Did  he  retain  this  notion  to  the 
end  of  his  life  ?  We  shall  answer  this  question  in  the  negative. 


HQ  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

In  "  Leonard  and  Gertrude,"  all  the  stress  is  laid  upon  active  Chris- 
tianity, love  is  occasionally  placed  almost  in  opposition  to  faith  :  a 
dead,  hypocritical  faith  not  being  always  distinguished  with  sufficient 
exactitude  from  true  faith,  which  is  active  in  love.  The  clergyman  in 
Leonard  and  Gertrude  is  an  honest  man,  but  strongly  inclined  to  mere 
moralizing ;  his  care  of  his  flock  is  more  that  of  a  faithful  personal 
friend,  than  of  one  acting  in  the  spirit  and  strength  of  a  church. 

In  the  "  Researches,"  Christianity  is  styled  a  religion  of  morality — 
an  effort  to  make  the  spirit  subdue  the  flesh.  If,  according  to  the  let- 
ter cited,  Pestalozzi  wavered  between  feelings,  which  drew  him  toward 
religion,  and  opinions,  which  led  him  away  from  it,  both  feeling  and 
Christianity  give  place,  in  the  work  just  mentioned,  to  this  belabored 
product  of  the  intellect. 

In  the  book,  "How  Gertrude  teaches  her  children,"  the  educa- 
tional theory  is,  as  we  have  seen,  extremely  weak  on  the  religious 
side ;  it  is  more  a  rhetorical  theory  of  intellectual  developments 
estranged  from  Christ. 

But  in  this  book,  also,  Pestalozzi's  feelings  repeatedly  glances 
through ;  there  stand  forth  the  aim  and  yearning  desire  of  his  toil- 
some life,  the  depth  of  a  love  which  brought  upon  the  poor  helpless 
man  countless  sorrows  and  almost  drove  him  to  despair.  From  the 
depths  of  his  necessity,  he  then  cries  to  God,  praying,  hoping,  offering 
up  his  thanks :  "  Friend,"  he  writes  to  Gesner,  "  let  me  now  for  a 
moment  forget  my  aim  and  my  labors,  and  abandon  myself  entirely 
to  the  feeling  of  melancholy  which  comes  over  me,  when  I  remember 
that  I  still  live,  though  I  am  no  longer  myself.  I  have  lost  every 
thing,  I  have  lost  myself;  nevertheless,  thou,  0  Lord,  hast  preserved 
in  me  the  desires  of  my  life,  and  hast  not  shattered  to  pieces  before 
my  eyes  the  aim  of  my  suffering,  as  thou  hast  shattered  the  aim  of 
thousands  of  men,  who  corrupted  themselves  in  their  own  ways. 
Thou  hast  preserved  to  me  the  work  of  my  life,  in  the  midst  of  my 
own  ruin,  and  hast  caused  to  arise  upon  me,  in  my  hopeless  declining 
age,  an  evening  brightness,  the  sight  of  whose  loveliness  outweighs 
the  Bufferings  of  my  life.  Lord,  I  am  not  worthy  of  the  mercy  and 
faithfulness  which  thou  hast  shown  toward  me.  Thou,  thou  alone, 
hast  had  mercy  on  the  trampled  worm  ;  thou  alone  hast  not  broken 
the  bruised  reed  ;  thou  alone  hast  not  quenched  the  smoking  flax ; 
and  hast  not,  to  the  latest  period  of  my  life,  turned  away  thy  face 
from  the  offering,  which  from  childhood  I  have  desired  to  bring  to  the 
forsaken  in  the  land,  but  have  never  been  able  to  bring." 

Before  I  consider  the  religious  character  of  Pestalozzi's  later  works, 
I  will  first  look  at  that  of  his  institution.  It  is  best  delineated  \>j 
Rarasauer.  lie  entered  the  institution  at  Burgdorf  in  1800,  as 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  ng 

a  boy  of  ten  years  ;  he  left  it  at  the  age  of  twenty-six,  as  head  teach- 
er, when  he  went  from  Yverdun  to  Wiirzburg.  Thus  he  had,  both  as 
a  learner  and  as  a  teacher,  become  acquainted  with  the  religious  ten- 
dency of  the  institution.  When,  in  later  years,  the  deep  truth  and 
solemn  sanctity  of  Christianity  dawned  upon  his  awakened  conscience, 
which  impelled  him  to  self-knowledge,  then  first  did  he  learn  to  form 
a  just  estimate  of  that  religious  tendency.  He  narrates  as  follows : — 

"  In  Burgdorf,  an  active  and  entirely  new  mode  of  life  opened  to  me ;  there 
reigned  so  much  love  and  simplicity  in  the  institution,  the  life  was  so  genial — I 
could  almost  say  patriarchal ;  not  much  was  learned,  it  is  true,  but  Pestalozzi 
was  the  father,  and  the  teachers  were  the  friends  of  the  pupils ;  Pestalozzi's 
morning  and  evening  prayers  had  such  a  fervor  and  simplicity,  that  they  carried 
away  every  one  who  took  part  in  them ;  he  prayed  fervently,  read  and  ex- 
plained G-ellert's  hymns  impressively,  exhorted  each  of  the  pupils  individually 
to  private  prayer,  and  saw  that  some  pupils  said  aloud  in  the  bedrooms,  every 
evening,  the  prayers  which  they  had  learned  at  home,  while  he  explained,  at 
the  same  time,  that  the  mere  repeating  of  prayers  by  rote  was  worthless,  and 
that  every  one  should  rather  pray  from  his  own  heart.  Such  exhortations 
became  more  and  more  rare  at  Yverdun,  and  the  praying  aloud  ceased  altogeth- 
er, like  so  much  else  that  had  a  genial  character.  "We  all  felt  that  more  must 
be  learned  than  at  Burgdorf;  but  we  all  fell,  in  consequence,  into  a  restless 
pushing  and  driving,  and  the  individual  teachers  into  a  scramble  after  distinction. 
Pestalozzi,  indeed,  remained  the  same  noble-hearted  old  man,  wholly  forgetting 
himself,  and  living  only  for  the  welfare  of  others,  and*  infusing  his  own  spirit 
into  the  entire  household ;  but,  as  it  arose  not  so  much  from  the  religious  ar- 
rangements and  from  Pestalozzi's  principles,  as  from  his  personal  character,  that 
so  genial  a  life  had  prevailed  at  Burgdorf,  that  spirit  could  not  last  long,  it  could 
not  gain  strength  and  elevate  itself  into  a  Christian  spirit.  On  the  other  hand, 
so  long  as  the  institution  was  small,  Pestalozzi  could,  by  his  thoroughly  amiable 
personal  character,  adjust  at  once  every  slight  discordance  ;  he  stood  in  much 
closer  relation  with  every  individual  member  of  the  circle,  and  could  thus 
observe  every  peculiarity  of  disposition,  and  influence  it  according  to  necessity. 
This  ceased  when  the  family  life  was  transformed  in  the  institution  into  a  con- 
stitutional state  existence.  Now  the  individual  was  more  easily  lost  in  the 
crowd ;  thus  there  arose  a  desire,  on  the  part  of  each,  to  make  himself  felt  and 
noticed.  Egotism  made  its  appearance  every  day  in  more  pointed  forms.  Envy 
and  jealousy  rankled  in  the  breasts  of  many.  The  instruction,  calculated  only 
for  the  development  of  the  mind,  nourished  feelings  of  selfishness  and  pride ; 
and  the  counterpoise,  which  only  the  fear  of  God  could  have  given,  was  not 
known.  Instead  of  being  told  that  only  that  teacher  could  labor  with  God's 
blessing  who  had  attained  to  the  knowledge  and  the  belief  of  the  highest 
truths,  and  had  thus  come  to  see  that  he  was  nothing  of  himself,  but  that  he 
had  to  thank  God  for  whatever  he  was  enabled  to  be  or  to  do,  and  that  every 
Christian,  but  especially  the  educator,  had  daily  cause  to  pray  to  God  for  pa- 
tience, love,  and  humility,  and  for  wisdom  in  doing  and  avoiding;  instead  of  this, 
we  heard  day  after  day  that  man  could  do  every  thing  that  he  wished,  that  he 
could  do  everything  of  himself,  and  that  he  alone  could  help  himself.  Had  the 
otherwise  so  noble  Pestalozzi  made  the  Bible  the  foundation  of  all  moral  and 
religious  education,  I  verily  believe  that  the  institution  would  still  have  been  in 
existence,  even  as  those  institutions  are  still  in  existence  and  working  with  suc- 
cess which  were  founded  by  Franke,  upward  of  one  hundred  years  ago,  with 
small  means,  but  in  full  reliance  on  God.  But,  instead  of  making  the  pupils  fa- 
miliar with  the  Bible,  Pestalozzi,  and  those  of  his  assistants  who  gave  the 
so-called  religious  instruction,  or  conducted  the  so-called  morning  and  evening 
prayers,  fell  more  and  more  in  each  succeeding  year  into  a  mere  empty  moral- 
izing ;  and  hence  it  may  be  understood  how  it  could  happen  that  I  grew  up  in 
this  institution,  was  confirmed  there,  and  for  sixteen  years  led  a  very  active  and 
morally  good  life,  without  acquiring  even  the  slightest  acquaintance  with  the 
word  of  God.  I  did,  indeed,  many  a  time  hear  the  Bible  named,  and  even  heard 


120  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

Pestalozzi  complain  that  nobody  read  it,  and  say  that  in  his  youth  things  had 
been  better  in  this  respect ;  at  the  domestic  worship  on  Sundays,  and  during  my 
confirmation  instruction,  I  also  frequently  heard  individual  texts  read  and  arbi- 
trarily explained ;  but  neither  I  nor  any  other  of  the  young  men  obtained  any 
idea  of  the  sacredness  and  connection  of  God's  word.  Just  as  Pestalozzi,  by  the 
force  of  his  personal  character,  attached  most  of  his  assistants  to  himself  for 
years,  so  that  they  forgot  themselves  as  he  forgot  himself,  when  good  was  to  be 
done,  so  also,  and  much  more,  might  he  have  inspired  them  for  the  Gospel,  and 
the  blessing  of  God  would  then  have  rested  on  him  and  them,  and  the  institution 
would  have  become  a  Christian  seminary.  It  would  not  have  been  necessary 
on  this  account  to  hang  out  a  sign-board  with  the  words  "  Christian  Educational 
Institution,"  displayed  upon  it;  on  the  contrary,  the  more  quietly  and  modestly 
Pestalozzi  and  his  assistants  had  conducted  themselves,  the  more  effectively 
would  they  have  worked,  and  even  the  most  noisy  blusterer  would  soon  have 
come  to  perceive  how  very  little  he  could  be  and  do  of  himself,  and  thus  would 
have  become  capable  of  learning  something  from  strangers.  Perhaps  some  per- 
son or  other  may  be  disposed  to  reproach  me  with  one-sidedness,  injustice,  or 
even  ingratitude,  toward  Pestalozzi,  and  to  oppose  to  my  testimony  the  fact  that 
at  Yverdun  Pestalozzi  employed  every  Friday  morning  principally  in  represent- 
ing Jesus  to  us  as  the  great  exemplar  of  love  and  self  sacrifice ;  or  I  may  be 
asked  whether  I  have  quite  forgotten  the  zeal  with  which  Niederer  often  gave 
the  confirmation  instruction.  But,  in  reply  to  this,  I  can  only  refer  to  the  fkcta 
which  I  have  just  detailed." 

I  could  add  but  little  to  this  statement  of  Ramsauer.  When  I  was 
in  the  institution,  the  religious  instruction  was  given  by  Niederer,  but 
no  stranger  was  allowed  to  be  present  at  it.  We  may  form  a  tolera- 
bly correct  notion,  however,  of  the  manner  in  which  he  gave  it,  from 
what  is  said  on  the  subject  in  the  "  Report  to  the  Parents."* 

"  All  the  elder  pupils,  (says  the  report,)  receive  positive  religious  instruction 
twice  a  week.  The  guiding  thread  that  is  used  for  this  purpose  is  the  course  of 
the  religious  development  of  the  human  race,  as  described  in  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures, from  the  Mosaic  records  downward,  and,  based  on  this,  the  pure  doc- 
trines of  Jesus  Christ,  as  he  announced  them  in  his  Gospel.  We  base  the 
teaching  of  moral  duties  chiefly  on  Christ's  sermon  on  the  mount,  and  the  teach- 
ing of  doctrines  chiefly  on  St.  John's  Gospel.  The  latter  is  read  connectedly 
and  explained  from  itself  and  from  Christ's  eternal  fundamental  view  of  God  and 
of  himself  as  the  visible  image  and  representative  of  the  god-head  and  the  god- 
like, of  the  relation  of  mankind  to  God,  and  of  the  life  in  God.  We  seek,  by 
the  example  of  Christ,  and  by  the  manner  in  which  he  viewed  and  treated  men 
and  things  and  their  relations,  to  awaken  in  the  children  an  intuitive  leaning 
toward  the  life  and  conduct,  the  belief  and  hope,  which  are  founded  in  the  un- 
changeable nature  of  religion,  and  to  render  these  things  habitual  to  them,  and 
by  the  development  of  those  graces  through  which  the  Father  shone  in  Him,  to 
raise  them  to  such  a  mind  and  mode  of  life,  that  God  may  shine  in  them  also. 
We  do  not  combat  religious  error,  but  endeavor  to  impart  only  religious  truth. 
We  seek  the  ground  of  all  dogmas  and  the  source  of  all  religious  views  in  the 
nature  of  religion,  in  the  nature  of  man,  and  in  his  propensities,  powers, 
wants,  and  relations,  in  order  that  the  child  may  learn  to  distinguish  the  truth 
in  every  garb  and  the  substance  in  every  form.  The  course  pursued  for  the  at- 
tainment of  the  last-named  object,  or  the  elementary  religious  instruction,  pre- 
paratory to  the  positive  doctrines  of  revelation,  is  based  specially  on  the  solution 
of  the  following  questions:  1.  What  is  the  original  religious  capability  in  human 
nature,  or  what  are  the  elements  of  all  religious  development  and  education,  in 
so  far  as  they  exist  in  man  himself,  and  proceed  from  him  as  something  implanted 
in  him  by  God  ?  These  elements  are  perceptions  and  feelings.  2.  By  what 
means  and  in  what  manner  must  these  primitive  religious  perceptions  and  feel- 
ings necessarily  be  excited  and  brought  to  consciousness  in  him  ?  Here  it  ia 
especially  the  relation  to  father  and  mother,  to  nature,  and  to  society,  that  ia 

*  There  is  no  doubt  that  this  passage  is  from  Niederer's  pen. 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  ]21 

regarded  as  a  means  of  religious  excitation  and  education.  3.  By  what  means 
and  in  what  manner  does  man  originally  and  necessarily  express  the  religious 
perceptions  and  feelings  excited  in  him  ?  And  to  what  does  all  this  lead  man  ? 
We  find  here  principally  the  expression  of  the  religious  disposition  as  a  gesture ; 
the  expression  of  the  religious  notion  as  a  word ;  the  expression  of  the  religious 
contemplation  as  an  image.  The  first  develops  itself  as  ceremony,  the  second 
as  instruction  and  doctrine,  the  last  as  symbol  and  image-worship.  With  the 
course  of  this  development  is  connected  the  development  of  what  utters  itself 
unchangeably  in  human  nature  as  veritable  and  eternal  religion,  every  where 
operative,  and  of  what,  as  sensual  degeneracy,  errors  of  the  passions,  and  person- 
al depravity,  leads  to  superstition  and  infidelity,  to  idolatry  and  image- worship, 
to  hypocritical  self-delusion  and  deception  of  others,  and  lastly,  to  the  contempt- 
uous rejection  of  all  that  is  divine  and  sacred.  The  pupil  finds  the  key  to  the 
clear  comprehension  of  this  in  the  intuitive  consciousness  of  the  awaking  and 
course  of  his  own  feelings,  in  the  impressions  which  things  make  on  his  own 
mind,  and  in  the  religious  arrangements  by  which  he  is  surrounded.  As  matter 
of  fact,  the  whole  is  exemplified  in  the  history  of  the  religious  culture  of  man- 
kind. The  indication  thereof,  or  the  thread  to  which  the  explanation  must  be 
attached,  in  giving  the  instruction,  exists  in  the  language  of  every  nation.  The 
most  important  results  to  be  accomplished  by  the  instruction  are :  That  the  pu- 
pil shall  lay  hold  of  the  true  and  the  eternal  in  their  origin ;  that  he  shall  look 
upon  the  human  race  as  essentially  religious,  and  as  an  organic  whole,  develop- 
ing itself  according  to  necessary  and  divine  laws ;  that,  understanding  also  in 
its  origin  and  in  its  consequences  the  fall  from  God  and  the  god-like,  he  shah1  all 
the  more  earnestly  and  faithfully  follow  the  way  of  return  to  God  and  to  the  life 
in  Him,  so  that,  being  thus  prepared,  he  may  comprehend  the  worship  of  God 
in  spirit  and  in  truth,  the  significance  of  the  eternal  Gospel ;  so  that  he  may 
attain  to  an  inward  godly  existence,  as  he  lives  outwardly  in  an  intelligent 
existence." 

I  have  quoted  the  whole  of  this  passage,  because  it  shows  how  far 
the  religious  instruction  was  removed  from  all  believing  fervor  and 
childlike  simplicity,  from  Christian  simplicity,  as  we  meet  with  it  in 
Luther's  small  catechism.  But  this  passage  characterizes  only  the 
religious  instruction  in  the  institution,  and  by  no  means  Pestalozzi's 
religious  views  and  practice. 

Still  it  is  clear  that  at  Yverdun  he  also  had  in  view  much  less  mor- 
al education  than  intellectual.  He  wished,  by  means  of  the  latter,  to 
lay  before  the  world  striking  results  of  the  method  ;  but  how  shall  he 
show  passing  strangers  the  results  of  moral  education,  a  humble  mind 
and  a  loving  heart,  or  shall  he  even  expose  them  rudely  to  public  gaze 
by  an  examination  ?  To  which  was  added,  that  in  the  multitude  of 
boys  he  despaired  of  being  able  to  take  each  one  individually  to 
his  heart  as  a  father  would  do,  who  never  loves  his  children  only  en 
masse. 

I  now  return  to  Pestalozzi's  writings,  and  come  to  those  which  he 
wrote  in  his  old  age. 

In  several  of  his  addresses  to  the  inmates  of  his  house,  there  are 
passages  which  bear  witness  that  even  during  the  years  which  he 
passed  at  Yverdun,  Christianity  still  lived  in  his  inmost  soul ;  peaceful 
Sabbath  and  festival  tones  soar  above  the  restless  and  noisy  week-day 
work.  So  in  his  Christmas  address  of  1810. 

"  I  have  been  told  by  old  people,  (lie  said,)  and  I  have  partly  seen  myself, 


122  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

that  Christmas  Eve  used  to  be  a  night  like  no  other.  The  day  of  the  highest 
earthly  joy  was  not  its  shadow.  The  anniversary  of  the  deliverance  of  the 
country  from  slavery,  the  anniversary  of  freedom,  was  not  to  be  compared  to  it. 
It  was  quite  a  heavenly  night,  a  night  of  heavenly  joy.  In  its  still  service  ded- 
icated to  God,  resounded  the  words :  '  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on 
earth  peace,  good  will  toward  men.'  "When  the  angels  still  assembled,  as  it 
were,  over  the  heads  of  men,  at  this  hour,  and  praised  God  that  the  Saviour  of 
the  world  was  born, — what  a  night  was  Christmas  Eve !  Who  can  describe  its 
joy  ?  "Who  can  tell  its  bliss  ?  The  earth  was,  on  that  night,  transformed  into  a 
heaven.  On  that  night,  God  was  celebrated  on  high,  peace  was  on  earth,  and 
men  showed  a  cheerful  good  will.  Brothers,  friends,  children,  could  I  but  carry 
you  back  into  the  old  Christian  world,  and  show  you  the  celebration  of  this  hour 
in  the  days  of  innocence  and  faith,  when  hah1"  the  world  still  accounted  it  a 
small  thing  to  die  for  the  faith  in  Christ  Jesus  1  Could  I  but  show  you  the  joy 
of  Christmas  Eve  in  the  picture  of  those  days  I  The  heart  full  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  and  the  hand  full  of  human  gifts — thus  stood  the  Christian  at  this  hour 
in  the  circle  of  his  brethren.  Thus  stood  the  mother  in  the  circle  of  her  chil- 
dren. Thus  stood  the  master  in  the  circle  of  his  workmen — the  gentleman  in 
the  circle  of  his  own  people.  Thus  stood  the  commune  before  their  pastor — 
thus  went  the  rich  man  into  the  chamber  of  the  poor.  At  this  hour,  enemy 
held  out  to  enemy  the  hand  of  reconciliation.  The  sinner  knelt  down  and  wept 
over  his  transgressions,  and  rejoiced  in  the  Saviour,  who  forgave  him  his  sins. 
The  hour  of  heavenly  joy  was  the  hour  of  heavenly  sanctification.  The  earth 
was  a  heavenly  earth,  and  the  abode  of  mortal  men  emitted  odors  of  immortal 
life.  May  the  joys  of  this  hour,  may  the  joy  at  the  birth  of  our  Redeemer,  so 
elevate  us,  that  Jesus  Christ  may  now  appear  to  us  as  the  visible  divine  love,  as 
he  sacrificed  himself  and  gave  himself  up  to  death  for  us.  May  we  rejoice  in 
the  hour  in  which  he  became  man,  because  he  brought  into  the  world  for  us  the 
great  gift  of  his  life,  and  laid  it  upon  the  altar  of  divine  love.  From  this  hour, 
he  was  the  priest  of  the  Lord,  sacrificed  for  us.  Friends,  brothers,  sisters,  let  us 
pray ;  0  God,  give  us  them  again,  those  fair  days  of  the  world,  in  which  the  hu- 
man race  truly  rejoiced  in  the  birth  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Redeemer.  Give  us 
again  tlie  times  in  which  the  hearts  of  men  were  at  this  hour,  full  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  and  their  hands  full  of  human  gifts  for  their  brethren.  Father  in 
heaven,  thou  wilt  give  us  them  again,  if  we  but  truly  desire  them/" 

In  the  address  already  mentioned,  which  Pestalozzi  delivered  in 
1818,  when  he  was  seventy-two  years  old,  occur  passages  which  make 
a  profound  impression  on  the  mind.  He  there  declares  that  happi- 
ness is  to  be  expected  from  Christianity  alone. 

"  The  artificial  spirit  of  our  times,  (he  says.)  has  also  annihilated  the  influence 
which  the  religious  feeling  of  our  fathers  exercised  upon  this  centre  of  human 
happiness.  This  religious  spirit  which  caused  the  happiness  of  the  quiet  and 
circumscribed  domestic  relations,  has  sunk  down  amongst  us  into  an  insolent 
spirit  of  reasoning  upon  ah1  that  is  sacred  and  divine ;  still  we  must  also 
acknowledge  that  the  prime  source  of  the  real  poison  of  our  artificiality,  namely, 
the  irreligious  feeling  of  the  present  age,  seems  to  be  shaken  in  the  very  depths 
of  its  destructive  powers;  the  blessed  spirit  of  the  true  Christian  doctrine 
appears  to  strike  deeper  root  again  in  the  midst  of  the  corruption  of  our  race, 
and  to  preserve  inward  purity  of  life  in  thousands  and  thousands  of  men,  and, 
indeed,  with  regard  to  popular  education,  it  is  from  this  quarter  alone  that  we 
can  derive  the  expectation,  that  we  shall  ever  attain  to  measures  really  calcula- 
ted to  reach  with  sufficient  efficacy  the  views,  dispositions,  appetites,  and  habits 
of  our  present  mode  of  life,  which  we  must  look  upon  as  the  original  source  of 
our  popular  depravity  and  the  misfortunes  of  our  times." 

The  conclusion  of  the  address  is  particularly  important : — 

Friends,  brothers,  become  renovators  of  my  house,  restorers  of  its  old  spirit, 
and  witnesses  that  the  spirit  of  my  youth,  which  is  seen  blossoming  in  '  Leon- 
ard and  Gertrude,'  and  nearer  maturity  in  '  How  Gertrude  teaches  her  children,' 
Etill  lives  in  me.  In  that  spirit,  become  joint  founders  of  the  present  result  of 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  J23 

the  old  original,  philanthropic  and  beneficent  purpose  of  my  institution.  In 
that  spirit,  and  in  no  other,  I  call  you  all,  who  are  members  of  my  institution, 
to  a  sacred  union  in  and  through  love.  Love  one  another,  as  Jesus  Christ  loved 
us.  '  Love  suffereth  long,  and  is  kind ;  love  envieth  not ;  love  vaunteth  not  it- 
self, is  not  puffed  up,  doth  not  behave  itself  unseemly,  seeketh  not  its  own,  is 
not  easily  provoked,  thinketh  no  evil ;  rejoiceth  not  in  iniquity,  but  rejoiceth  in 
the  truth ;  beareth  all  things,  believeth  all  things,  hopeth  all  things,  endureth 
all  things.'  Friends,  brothers,  bless  them  that  curse  you,  do  good  to  them  that 
hate  you.  Heap  coals  of  fire  on  the  heads  of  your  enemies.  Let  not  the  sun 
go  down  upon  your  wrath.  If  thou  bring  thy  gift  to  the  altar,  first  be  reconciled 
to  thy  brother,  and  then  come  and  offer  thy  gift.  All  unrelenting  severity,  even 
toward  those  who  do  us  wrong,  be  far  from  our  house.  Let  all  human  severity 
be  lost  in  the  gentleness  of  our  faith.  Let  no  one  among  you  attempt  to  excuse 
his  severity  toward  those  who  are  in  the  wrong.  Let  no  one  say  that  Jesus 
Christ  did  not  love  those  who  did  wrong.  He  did  love  them.  He  loved  them 
with  divine  love.  He  died  for  them.  He  came  not  to  call  the  righteous,  but 
sinners,  to  repentance.  He  did  not  find  sinners  faithful,  but  made  them  faithful. 
He  did  not  find  them  humble,  but  made  them  humble,  by  his  own  humility. 
Verily,  verily,  it  was  with  the  high  and  holy  service  of  his  humility  that  he 
conquered  the  pride  of  sinners,  and  chained  them  by  faith  to  the  heart  of  his 
divine  love.  Friends,  brothers,  if  we  do  this,  if  we  love  one  another,  as  Jesus 
Christ  loved  us,  we  shall  overcome  all  the  obstacles  which  stand  in  the  way  of 
our  life's  purpose,  and  be  able  to  ground  the  welfare  of  our  institution  upon  the 
everlasting  rock,  on  which  God  himself  has  built  the  welfare  of  the  human  race, 
through  Jesus  Christ.  Amen." 

At  the  grave,  I  have  asked  after  Pestalozzi's  confession  of  faith  ;  I 
have  sought  it  in  his  writings,  as  well  as  in  his  life,  and  communicated 
to  the  reader  what  he  himself  confessed  in  1793  about  his  Christianity 
at  that  period  of  his  life,  when,  perhaps,  he  had  separated  himself 
furthest  from  Christ,  and  lived  only  in  a  speculative  and  political  ele- 
ment. "  Wavering,  (so  went  the  confession,)  between  feelings  which 
drew  me  toward  religion,  and  opinions  which  led  me  away  from  it,  I 
went  the  dead  way  of  my  time."  This  confession  we  have  found  con- 
firmed in  his  writings,  as  in  his  life  ;  but  in  his  earliest,  and  again  in 
his  latest  writings,  religious  feeling  has  been  seen  soaring  above  a 
sceptical  intellect.  And  throughout  his  long  life  how  high  soars  a 
love  which  would  not  despair  under  any  suffering,  any  ingratitude ; 
how  high  it  soars  above  all  doubts,  in  the  pure  air  of  heaven  !  Men 
are  seduced  into  infidelity  by  superficial  reflection,  which,  misap- 
prehending and  over-estimating  the  measure  of  insight  possible  to 
man,  fails  to  judge  aright  where  a  clear  self-knowledge  believes  with 
intelligent  resignation.  But  Christ,  who  takes  the  strong  for  his  spoil, 
reigns  ever  in  the  inmost  heart  of  Christians  as  episcopus  in  partibus 
infidelium ;  even  in  times,  when  their  faith  wavers,  he  remains 
faithful  to  them.  This  we  see  in  Pestalozzi,  both  in  his  words  and  in 
his  works. 

Who  shall  dare  cast  a  stone  at  him,  who  shall  dare  condemn  him  ? 
To  him  shall  much  be  forgiven,  for  he  loved  much.  Aye,  the  whole 
of  his  toilsome  life  is  pervaded  by  love — by  a  yearning  desire  to  alle- 
viate the  condition  of  the  poor  suffering  people.  That  love  was  the 


124  L1FE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

passion  of  his  heart ;  it  kindled  in  him  a  burning  anger  against  all 
who  stood  in  the  way  of  the  attainment  of  its  object. 

It  is  true,  that  the  chief  obstacle  in  his  way  was  himself.  With 
God,  counsel  and  action  go  together ;  with  men,  they  are  only  too 
often  separated.  Thus  we  have  seen  that  Pestalozzi,  with  the  clearest 
knowledge  of  men,  was  incapable  of  managing  and  governing  them ; 
with  the  most  amiable  ideals,  he  was  blind  when  he  had  to  show  the 
way  to  those  ideals.  Nay,  in  endeavoring  to  realize  his  great  concep- 
tions, he  frequently  took  the  course  most  opposed  to  them. 

No  one  was  further  than  he  was  from  a  cleanly  domestic  existence ; 
yet  no  one  desired  such  an  existence  more  earnestly,  or  understood  its 
value  better,  than  he  did.  The  delineations  of  Gertrude's  housekeep- 
ing prove  that  a  poet  can  truthfully  depict  not  only  what  he  possesses 
in  full  degree,  but  what  he  longs  for  with  his  whole  heart  because  he 
lacks  it  altogether. 

He  passed  the  greater  part  of  his  life  in  pressing  want :  thus  he 
could  scarcely  fail  to  feel  a  true  and  spontaneous  sympathy  with  the 
poor  and  abandoned. 

If  he  was  cynical  in  evil  days  from  necessity ;  in  better  days,  he 
was  so  on  principle.  Corresponding  to  the  bodily  cynicism,  there 
was  in  the  character  of  his  mind,  something  which  I  would  call,  not 
spiritual  poverty,  but  intellectual  cynicism  :  an  aversion  to  the  aristoc- 
racy of  education.  And  yet,  as  one  of  the  contradictions  of  which 
his  character  is  full,  he  felt  himself  called  to  lay  new  foundations  un- 
der the  lofty  structure  of  this  education,  instead  of  the  old  pernicious 
ones.  He  wanted  to  support  the  upper  story  of  the  building,  with- 
out troubling  himself  about  that  story  itself.  On  one  occasion,  he 
even  made  it  the  subject  of  a  boast,  that  he  had  not  read  a  book  for 
thirty  years. 

Hence  it  came,  as  I  have  already  said,  that  he  committed  so  many 
mistakes  usual  with  self-taught  men.  He  wants  the  historical  basis  ; 
things  which  others  had  discovered  long  before  appear  to  him  to  be 
quite  new  when  thought  of  by  himself  or  any  one  of  his  teachers. 
He  also  torments  himself  to  invent  things  which  had  been  invented 
and  brought  to  perfection  long  before,  and  might  have  been  used  by 
him,  if  he  had  only  known  of  them.  For  example,  how  useful  an 
acquaintance  with  the  excellent  Werner's  treatment  of  the  mineralog- 
ical  characters  of  rocks  would  have  been  to  him,  especially  in  the  def- 
inition of  the  ideas,  observations,  naming,  description,  &c.  As  a  self- 
taught  man,  he  every  day  collected  heaps  of  stones  in  his  walks.  If 
he  had  been  under  the  discipline  of  the  Freiberg  school,  the  observa- 
tion of  a  single  stone  would  have  profited  him  more,  than  large  heaps 


LIFE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI.  }25 

of  stones,  laboriously  brought  together,  could  do,  in  the  absence  of 
any  such  division. 

Self-taught  men,  I  say,  want  the  discipline  of  the  school.  It  is  not 
simply  that,  in  the  province  of  the  intellectual,  they  often  find  only 
after  long  wanderings  what  they  might  easily  have  attained  by  a  direct 
and  beaten  path  ;  they  want  also  the  ethical  discipline,  which  restrains 
us  from  running  according  to  caprice  after  intellectual  enjoyments,  and 
wholesomely  compels  us  to  deny  ourselves  and  follow  the  path 
indicated  to  us  by  the  teacher. 

Many,  it  is  true,  fear  that  the  oracular  instinct  of  the  self-taught 
might  suffer  from  the  school.  But,  if  the  school  is  of  the  right  sort, 
this  instinct,  if  genuine,  will  be  strengthened  by  it ;  deep-felt,  dreamy, 
and  passive  presentiments  are  transfigured  into  sound,  waking,  and 
active  observation. 

This  self-taught  character  of  Pestalozzi's  mind  showed  itself  in  his 
treatment  of  several  branches  of  instruction.  What  are  his  names 
of  towns,  which  he  takes  in  alphabetical  order  from  the  index  of  a 
geography  book,  without  possessing  any  knowledge  of  the  subject ; 
what  are  the  heaps  of  words  transcribed  from  Scheller's  Lexicon : 
what  else  are  they  but  the  trials  of  an  undisciplined  mind,  to  find  out 
new  ways  of  writing  schoolbooks  ? 

But  when  the  self-taught  man  forsakes  the  old  highways,  he  finds, 
in  spite  of  much  going  astray,  many  short  by-ways,  the  knowledge  of 
which  is  welcome  to  the  students  of  the  subject,  and  induces  them  to 
make  new  experiments  themselves.  In  this  manner,  Pestalozzi 
exercised  an  influence  even  upon  his  adversaries. 

Generally,  Pestalozzi's  personal  influence  on  the  methods  of  teach- 
ing particular  subjects  was  small ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  he  com- 
pelled the  scholastic  world  to  revise  the  whole  of  their  task,  to  reflect 
on  the  nature  and  destiny  of  man,  as  also  on  the  proper  way  of  leading 
him  from  his  youth  toward  that  destiny.  And  this  was  done,  not  in 
the  superficial  rationalistic  manner  of  Basedow*  and  his  school,  but 
so  profoundly,  that  even  a  man  like  Fichte  anticipated  very  great 
things  from  it. 

But  it  is  to  be  lamented,  that  the  actual  attempts  made  by  Pesta- 

Basedow  founded  an  educational  institution  called  the  "  Philanthropin,"  at  Dessua,  in 
1774.  In  this  institution,  the  educational  views  of  Rousseau,  as  expounded  in  his  "  Emile," 
were  exclusively  followed,  and  every  effort  made  to  realize  them.  Rousseau  was  at  that 
time  the  pharos  of  many  educationists  in  Germany  and  Switzerland,  as  he  was  the  pharos 
of  the  men  of  the  revolution  in  France.  The  Philanthropin  excited  a  good  deal  of  attention 
at  the  time.  The  name  of  the  Philanthropin  still  survives,  but  it  has  almost  become  a  term 
of  reproach  to  signify  any  shallow  educational  enterprise.  It  appears,  however,  that,  together 
with  much  that  was  whimsical  and  even  foolish,  the  institution  presented  many  honest  and 
unselfish  efforts  on  the  part  of  faithful  workers,  and  produced  many  wholesome  fruits. — Sec 
Returner's  account  of  the  Philanthropin. 


126  L1FE  AND  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

lozzi  and  his  fellow-laborers  to  set  up  new  methods  of  teaching  vari- 
ous subjects,  have  met  with  such  especial  approbation  and  imitation. 
An  examination  of  Pestalozzi's  profound  principles,  and  an  insight 
into  the  contradiction  between  these  principles  and  his  practice,  would 
have  conduced  much  more  to  the  discovery  of  new  methods,  really 
answering  to  the  principles.  This  is  appplicable,  for  instance,  to  what 
I  have  said  upon  the  exercises  in  observation,  falsely  so  called.  Most 
of  the  imitators  of  the  great  man  have  fallen  in  love  with  his  dark 
side,  the  endeavor  to  mechanise  education.  When  those  purely  ex- 
ternal appliances  and  artifices  which  he  employed  for  mechanising  ed- 
ucation shall  have  been  so  modified  as  to  be  no  longer  recognizable, 
or  shall  have  been  entirely  laid  aside  and  forgotten — then  Pestalozzi's 
"Leonard  and  Gertrude,"  the  "Evening  Hour  of  a  Hermit,"  and 
"How  Gertrude  teaches  her  Children,"  will  still  live  on  and  exercise 
an  influence,  though  even  these  works,  like  every  thing  else  that  is  hu- 
man, are  not  altogether  free  from  spot  or  blemish.  Profound 
thoughts,  born  of  a  holy  love  under  severe  pains,  they  are  thoughts 
of  eternal  life,  and,  like  love,  shall  never  cease. 


APPENDIX 


PESTALOZZI'S  HUNDREDTH  BIRTHDAY. 


LET  a  graduate  of  any  good  public  school  imagine  a  system  of  schools 
permitting  indeed,  though  after  a  most  laborious  and  imperfect  fashion, 
for  the  wealthy  and  noble,  large  acquirements  ;  but,  for  all  those  likely 
to  attend  what  answer  to  our  common  or  public  schools,  teaching  only 
reading,  and  that  alone,  or  at  most  with  church  singing,  and  memoriz- 
ing of  texts  and  hymns ;  reading  all  day,  by  one  pupil  at  a  time,  from 
the  droning  A,  B,  C,  up  to  whatever  rhetoric  was  highest  in  grade ;  in 
that  even  shrill  yell  which  was  the  elocutionary  rule  fifty  years  ago, 
without  any  possible  regard  to  the  meaning  of  what  was  read,  or 
indeed  of  what  was  committed  to  memory ;  no  arithmetic,  no  geogra- 
phy, no  grammar,  no  writing,  even.  Let  him  imagine  this  single  study 
taught  in  dens  almost  like  prisons ;  by  men  absolutely  ferocious  in  man- 
ners and  feelings :  who  whipped  a  single  scholar — as  Martin  Luther's 
master  did  him — fifteen  times  in  one  forenoon;  who  feruled,  caned, 
boxed,  slapped,  rapped,  and  punched,  right  and  left ;  made  children  kneel 
on  peas  and  sharp  edges  of  wood ;  in  short,  ransacked  their  own  dull 
brains  for  ingenious  tortures,  and  a  language  twice  as  copious  as  Eng- 
lish, besides  Latin  and  Greek,  for  nicknames  and  reproaches,  to  inflict 
upon  the  youth  of  their  charge  ;  schools  to  which  parents  threatened  to 
send  contumacious  children,  as  if  to  the  "  Black  Man."  or  any  other 
hideous,  unknown  torment ;  schools  almost  precisely  as  destitute  of  any 
kindly  feeling,  of  any  humanizing  tendency,  of  any  moral  or  religious 
influence,  as  any  old-fashioned  Newgate  or  Bridewell.  Let  our  gradu- 
ate imagine,  if  he  can,  all  this.  Then  let  him  further  imagine  a  state 
of  society  stiffened,  by  ages  of  social  fixity,  into  immovable  grades,  and 
where  "the  lower  classes"  were  to  be  permitted  this,  reckoned  their 
appropriate  education,  but  no  more.  Let  him  still  further  imagine  great 
and  far-reaching  political,  social,  and  intellectual  disturbances,  working 
in  powerful  conjunction,  upsetting  all  manner  of  laws,  systems,  distinc- 
tions, and  doctrines,  preparing  all  minds  to  hope  for,  and  to  admit,  better 
beliefs,  and  better  opportunities,  for  themselves  and  for  others.  And, 
lastly,  let  him  imagine  a  man  possessed  of  the  vastest  capacity  for  la- 
bor, a  mind  fruitful  of  expedients  and  experiments  to  the  very  highest 
degree,  and  no  less  clear  and  firm  in  finding  and  adhering  to  funda- 
mental generalizations,  an  absolutely  unbounded  and  tireless  benevo- 
lence, a  love  for  humanity  and  a  faith  in  his  principles  little  less  perfect 
and  self-sustaining  than  that  of  an  apostle ;  who  steps  forth  just  in  that 
period  of  intense  receptive  mental  activity,  and  in  the  place  of  that  di- 
abolical ancient  school  system,  proceeds  not  only  to  propose,  but  to 
demonstrate,  and  in  spite  of  sufferings,  obstacles,  and  failures  enough  to 


130  PESTALOZZrS  HUNDREDTH  BIRTHDAY. 

have  discouraged  an  army  of  martyrs,  effectually  to  establish  a  system, 
which  not  only,  in  the  words  of  its  official  investigators  in  1802,  was 
"  that  true  elementary  method  which  has  long  been  desired,  but  hith- 
erto vainly  sought ;  which  prepares  the  child  for  every  situation,  for 
all  arts  and  sciences ;  which  is  appropriate  to  all  classes  and  condi- 
tions, and  is  the  first  indispensable  foundation  for  human  cultivation ; 
which  not  only  was  thus  intellectually  the  absolute  ideal  of  education, 
but  whose  very  atmosphere  was  one  of  kindness  and  encouragement, 
whose  perfection  was  to  depend  upon  its  identity  with  the  affectionate 
discipline  of  a  mother:  which  expressly  included,  and  even  preferred, 
the  poor,  the  orphan,  and  the  helpless ;  and  which,  last  and  best  of  all, 
was  fundamentally  inwrought  with  such  hygienic,  ethical,  and  relig- 
ious principles  that  its  legitimate  result  would  be  to  make  a  strong,  and 
wise,  and  just  man,  upright  among  his  fellows,  mutually  respecting  and 
respected,  and  a  trusting  worshiper  of  God." 

Let  our  graduate  imagine  this,  and  he  may  comprehend  what  the 
Germans  think  of  Pestalozzi.  The  reverence  and  gratitude  which  they, 
in  common  indeed  with  all  Europe,  though  in  somewhat  higher  degree, 
entertain  toward  him,  were  well  exemplified  in  the  festival  observed  in 
Germany,  Switzerland,  and  Holland,  on  the  12th  of  January,  1846,  the 
hundredth  anniversary  of  his  birthday,  and  in  the  consequent  proceed- 
ings ;  of  which  a  brief  account  follows. 

The  conception  of  this  celebration  originated  with  that  veteran  and 
most  useful  educator,  Dr.  Adolph  Diesterweg,  then  director  of  a  sem- 
inary at  Berlin.  A  mistake  of  a  year,  founded  on  dates  given  by  good 
authorities,  occasioned  a  partial  celebration  on  the  12th  of  January, 
1845.  This,  however,  was  made  a  means  of  wider  notification  and 
effort  for  the  following  year,  and  we  translate  the  most  characteristic 
portion  of  the  call,  which  was  signed  by  forty-eight  eminent  teachers 
and  educators,  including  Diesterweg  himself. 

"  His  (Pestalozzi's)  life  and  labors  testify  that  no  object  lay  nearer  his 
heart  than  to  secure  for  neglected  children  an  education  simple,  natural, 
pure  in  morals,  re-enforced  by  the  influence  of  home  and  school,  and  ade- 
quate to  the  needs  of  their  future  life.  A  concurrence  of  untoward  circum- 
stances prevented  the  permanent  success  of  such  an  orphan  asylum,  or 
poor  school,  though  proposed  and  often  attempted  by  him.  For  this  rea- 
son the  idea  has  occurred  to  various  of  his  admirers  and  friends,  in  vari- 
ous places,  of  establishing  such  institutions,  and  one  first  to  be  called 
'  Pestalozzi  Foundation.'  The  undersigned,  having  the  permission  of 
the  authorities,  have  associated  for  the  establishment  of  such  an  insti- 
tution, to  be  a  monument  of  the  gratitude  of  the  whole  German  father- 
land toward  that  noble  man.  This  call  is  intended  to  inform  the  public 
of  this  design,  and  to  request  active  co-operation,  and  contributions  in 
money. 

"  The  Pestalozzi  Foundation  is  intended  to  afford  to  poor  children  and 
orphans  an  education  suitable  to  their  circumstances,  and  in  accordance 
with  Pestalozzi's  views  for  this  purpose. 


PESTALOZZl'S  HUNDREDTH  BIRTHDAY.  131 

"  1.  The  institutions  founded  will  be  situated  in  the  country,  where 
only,  as  the  undersigned  believe,  can  the  education  of  orphans  succeed. 

"  2.  The  pupils  will,  from  the  beginning,  besides  intellectual,  moral, 
and  religious  education,  be  trained  to  domestic,  agricultural,  or  indus- 
trial knowledge  and  capacities!. 

"  3.  The  managers  and  matrons  to  whom  the  family  education  of  the 
pupils  will  be  confided,  are  to  labor  in  the  spirit  of  'Leonard  and  Ger- 
trude? and  '  How  Gertrude  Teaches  her  Children?  and  the  supervisors 
and  officers  of  instruction  will  endeavor  not  only  to  put  in  practice  the 
principles  of  the  ''Idea  of  Elementary  Training?  but  to  develop  and 
propagate  them. 

K  *  *  *  \ye  thus  appeal  with  confidence  to  all  who  feel  themselves 
bound  to  gratitude  toward  Heinrich  Pestalozzi ;  to  all  who  feel  for  the 
children  of  the  poor  and  for  orphans;  to  all  who  expect  beneficial  con- 
sequences to  home  and  school  education  from  the  revival  and  develop- 
ment of  the  spirit  of  Pestalozzi,  which  the  undersigned  believe  to  be 
the  true  spirit  of  education ;  we  appeal,  in  short,  to  all  friends  of  the 
people  and  of  the  fatherland,  for  efficient,  aid  to  this  undertaking — at 
once  a  monument  of  gratitude  to  a  great  man,  and  an  attempt  to  sup- 
ply an  urgent  want  of  the  present  age. 

"  BERLIN,  January  12,  1845." 

A  second  appeal  was  put  forth,  July  3d  of  the  same  year,  by  Diester- 
weg,  "  to  the  teachers  of  Germany,"  eloquently  setting  forth  their  pro- 
fessional obligations  to  Pestalozzi.  calling  upon  them  for  corresponding 
efforts  in  aid  of  the  enterprise,  and  proceeded  to  refer  again,  in  very 
pointed  terms,  to  the  characteristically  charitable  and  thoroughly  prac- 
tical aspirations  of  Pestalozzi  for  the  education  of  neglected  children, 
and  to  the  similar  character  of  the  proposed  institution. 

u  It  was  his  chiefest  wish  to  dry  the  tears  from  the  cheeks  of  orphans, 
and  to  educate  them  ;  he  longed  to  be  the  father,  the  friend,  the  teacher 
of  the  unfortunate  and  the  neglected. 

"  Do  you,  therefore,  teacher  of  the  common  school,  friend  of  the  people, 
prove  your  gratitude  to  Heinrich  Pestalozzi.  by  doing  your  part  for  the 
Pestalozzi  Foundation — no  monument  of  bronze  or  of  stone ;  for  none 
but  a  living  monument  is  worthy  of  him — which  shall  stand,  within  the 
territory  of  Germany,  a  proof  of  the  thankfulness  of  posterity,  an  ever- 
lasting blessing  to  children,  to  the  cause  of  education,  and  human  de- 
velopment." 

The  institution  spoken  of  in  these  documents  was  intended  to  be  a 
single  central  one,  to  be  endowed  by  the  contributions  of  all  donors,  and 
to  be  a  model  and  parent  for  others  throughout  Germany ;  the  sum 
requisite  being  computed  at  30,000  thalers,  about  $22.500. 

But  although  sympathy  with  the  general  purpose  thus  brought  into 
notice  was  universal  and  lively,  difficulties,  apparently  chiefly  sectarian, 
eoon  arose,  in  regard  to  the  special  feature  of  a  first  central  institution  ; 
and  these  resulted  in  the  holding  of  many  local  festivals  instead  of  one 
great  one,  and  the  organization  of  many  local  Pestaloz/i  Foundations, 


132  PESTALOZZrS  HUNDREDTH  BIRTHDAY. 

or  Pestalozzi  Societies,  instead  of  one  general  one.  Such  festivals  wert 
observed,  and  institutions  or  societies  established,  at  Berlin,  Dresden, 
Leipzig,  Frankfort,  Erfurt,  Basle,  and  many  other  places.  We  proceed 
to  give  some  account  of  some  of  them,  with  extracts  from  the  more  sig- 
nificant portions  of  the  numerous  addresses,  and  other  documents  con- 
nected with  them. 

Dr.  Diesterweg  delivered,  at  Berlin,  a  characteristic  and  interesting 
discourse.  In  describing  the  revolution  caused  by  Pestalozzi  in  the 
estimation  of  different  studies,  he  said : — 

"  After  the  Reformation,  that  is,  after  the  establishment  of  German 
common  schools,  studies  were  divided  into  two  classes:  one  including 
,the  Bible,  catechism,  and  hymn-book,  the  other  including  the  so-called 
trivial  studies.  The  former  were  for  heaven — that  is,  to  prepare  for 
eternal  happiness;  the  latter  for  earth,  and  its  ordinary  employments. 
The  consequence  of  this  universally-received  distinction  was,  that  the 
religious  teachers  asserted  a  dignity  far  higher  than  that  of  the  "trivial" 
teachers.  This  notion  is  theoretically  denied  by  Pestalozzi — at  least  by 
immediate  logical  conclusion,  though  I  do  not  think  he  discussed  the 
subject  specially — and  by  his  school.  We  have  learned  to  comprehend 
the  moral  influence  of  instruction  in  itself,  aside  from  any  peculiar  char- 
acter in  the  subject  taught;  and,  still  further,  the  direct  influence  of  all 
true  instruction  upon  the  development  of  the  pupil's  character.  This 
influence  does  not  depend  upon  the  thing  taught,  but  in  the  manner  of 
teaching.  As  in  Hegel's  system  of  philosophy,  so  it  is  in  elementary 
instruction — and  should  be  in  all  instruction — its  strength  is  in  its  method. 
This  principle  will  naturally  not  be  understood  by  eloquent  word-teachers 
and  lecturers  from  chairs  of  instruction ;  and  last  of  all  by  those  dicta- 
ting machines  and  note-readers,  who,  to  the  disgrace  of  pedagogy  and 
the  shame  of  the  whole  age,  exist  even  at  the  present  day.  But  we, 
Pestalozzi's  scholars  and  followers,  comprehend  it,  have  mastered  it, 
and  can  demonstrate  its  results  in  our  schools.  What  would  Adam 
Ries,  that  pattern  of  all  blind  guides,  say,  if  he  could  come  to  life  again 
after  three  hundred  years,  and  taking  up  an  arithmetic* — which  has 
become  capable  of  use,  as  an  intelligently  arranged  elementary  study, 
only  since  Pestalozzi's  time — should  find  in  it  a  chapter  "  On  the  moral 
iji/luence  of  instruction  in  arithmetic  ?  " 

He  sums  up  the  changes  brought  about  by  Pestalozzi,  thus: — 

"  Instead  of  brutal,  staring  stupidity,  close  and  tense  attention ;  for 
dull  and  blockish  eyes,  cheerful  and  pleased  looks  ;  for  crooked  backs,  the 
natural  erectness  of  the  figure ;  for  dumbness  or  silence,  joyous  pleas- 
ure in  speaking,  and  promptitude  that  even  takes  the  word  out  of  anoth- 
er's mouth ;  for  excessive  verbosity  in  the  teacher,  and  consequent 
stupidity  in  the  scholar,  a  dialogic  or,  at  least,  a  dialogic-conversational 
method ;  for  government  by  the  stick,  a  reasonable  and  therefore  a  seri- 
ous and  strict  discipline ;  for  mere  external  doctrines  and  external  disci- 
pline, a  mental  training,  in  which  every  doctrine  is  a  discipline  also; 

*  Grubb's  Arithmetic. 


PESTALOZZl'S  HUNDREDTH  BIRTHDAY.  133 

instead  of  a  government  by  force,  and  a  consequent  fear  of  the  school 
and  its  pedant,  love  of  school  and  respect  for  the  teacher." 

He  proceeds  to  suggest  how  far-reaching  was  the  influence  of  Pesta- 
lozzi's  labors  in  mere  school-rooms  : — 

"  But  is  the  spirit  of  Pestalozzi  not  entitled  to  some  part  of  the 
credit  of  the  elevation  of  the  German  people?  Did  this  remarkable 
change  spring  up  in  a  night,  and  from  nothing?  It  is,  rather,  to  be 
wondered  at,  that  the  Pestalozzian  method  should  have  brought  about 
such  vast  results  without  foreseeing  them.  It  would  be  unreasonable 
to  claim  that  this  alone  accomplished  the  wonder;  but  it  was  certainly 
not  one  of  the  least  of  its  causes.  Lord  Brougham  said  that  the 
twenty-six  letters  of  the  present  schoolmaster — those  '  black  hussars  ' — 
were  mightier  than  the  bayonet  of  the  soldier.  Consider  what  a  child 
must  become,  who  is  taught  as  we  have  described,  for  six  or  eight  years 
or  more.  Consider  what  a  nation  must  become,  all  the  youth  of  which 
have  enjoyed  the  influence  of  such  an  education.  What  a  project  does 
this  idea  open  in  the  future  !  The  Jesuits  of  Freiburg  had  a  glimpse 
of  it,  though  no  more,  when  they  said  that  they  wanted  no  schools 
which  should  educate  '  Apostles  of  Radicalism  ;'  an  expression  shame- 
ful, not  to  Pestalozzi,  but  to  the  utterer  of  it." 

Further  on,  he  forcibly  portrays  the  need  and  the  requisites  of  such 
an  institution  as  the  intended  Pestalozzi  Foundation. 

"  The  help  we  would  afford  is  radical,  is  the  only  help.  We  consider 
all  institutions  worthy  of  praise  and  of  assistance,  which  contribute  to 
the  amelioration  of  human  suffering,  the  advancement  of  morals  and 
good  training.  Therefore  we  speak  well  of  other  institutions  having 
the  same  general  design  with  ours:  institutions  for  the  care  of  children; 
orphan  houses ;  rescue  institutions  for  neglected  children  ;  associations 
for  changing  prisons  into  institutions  of  reform,  and  for  the  care  of 
dismissed  criminals  and  prisoners.  But  none  of  these  go  to  the  root  of 
the  matter;  they  do  not  correspond  with  the  precise  want;  they  do  not 
go  deep  enough.  Many  of  them  almost  seem  to  be  organized  to  make 
sport  of  the  laws  of  human  nature  and  reason.  What,  for  instance,  ac- 
cording to  those  laws,  can  a  child  be  expected  to  become,  who  has  grown 
up  with  ignorant  parents,  from  whom  it  can  learn  nothing  but  vices  ;  who 
has  learned  from  them  to  lie  and  to  steal,  to  wander  about  and  be  a  vag- 
abond ?  In  general,  we  answer,  only  a  man  who  will  misuse  his  physical 
and  mental  powers;  that  is,  a  criminal,  a  wild  beast,  dangerous  to  the 
welfare  of  society.  That  society,  for  self-preservation,  shuts  up  such 
men,  like  wild  beasts,  in  a  cage ;  or  punishes,  or  kills  him  ;  although,  nine 
times  out  of  ten,  he  became  such  because  he  must;  as  probably  any  one 
of  us  would  have  done  !  Is  this  proceeding  reasonable  ?  Do  we  suc- 
ceed when  we  try  to  reform  an  old  rogue  ?  Or  do  you  suppose  that 
children,  if  they  only  attend  the  infant  school,  are  under  school  discipline, 
and  are  confirmed,  can  be  otherwise  left  in  charge  of  abandoned  parents, 
and  not  be  contaminated  by  the  pestilent  atmosphere  around  them? 
Experience  teaches,  and  it  can  not  be  otherwise,  that  the  influence  of 


134  PESTALOZZrS  HUNDREDTH  BIRTHDAY. 

father  and  mother,  whether  good  or  bad,  is  infinitely  greater  than  that 
of  infant  schools,  or  any  schools.  Those  who  have  managed  reform 
institutions  understand  this  best.  The  reason  of  the  ill-success  of  such 
is,  that  they  first  begin  too  late ;  for  they  take  the  children  after  they 
have  shown  ineradicable  marks  of  debasement.  It  is  easy  to  protect  an 
uncontaminated  child  from  vice ;  but  to  restore  to  a  contaminated  one 
its  pristine  health  and  purity,  is  infinitely  difficult,  if  not  impossible. 

"  Our  intention  therefore  is,  to  receive  into  the  Pestalozzi  Foundation 
children  who  can  not  be  expected  to  be  educated  in  their  own  homes; 
and  those  will  naturally  be  preferred,  who  are  destitute  of  a  father  or 
mother,  and  are  without  means.  The  existing  orphan  houses  do  not  ful- 
fill their  purposes ;  and  their  organization  does  not  usually  answer  the 
requirements  of  the  Pestalozzian  principles.  We  would  establish  mod- 
el institutions  for  the  education  of  neglected  children,  which  shall  observe 
natural  laws,  in  which  the  child  shall  receive  a  family  education.  An 
education  together  with  hundreds  is — it  must  be  said — barrack  instruc- 
tion. A  child  who  is  to  become  an  adult,  with  human  feelings,  must 
have  enjoyed  the  thorough  and  kindly  care  of  the  feminine  nature  and 
of  an  affectionate  father.  All  true  education  is  individual.  Where  the 
letter  of  the  law  prevails,  where  each  child  is  managed  by  general 
rules,  where  it  is  only  a  number  or  a  figure,  which  it  must  be  in  a 
school  of  hundreds,  there  is  no  human  education,  in  any  higher  sense. 
A  girl  even,  brought  up  among  hundreds,  is,  so  to  speak,  even  when  a 
child,  a  public  girl." 

Adverting  afterward  to  the  financial  economy  of  such  institutions, 
he  observes  that  Adam  Smith  remarks,  that  "  The  support  of  the  poor 
and  of  criminals  costs  £8,000.000  a  year  in  England  and  Wales.  If 
£2,000,000  of  this  were  invested  in  education  and  good  bringing  up,  at 
least  one-half  of  the  whole  amount  would  be  saved." 

He  then  adverts,  with  some  feeling,  but  conciliatingly,  to  the  unex- 
pected breaking  up  of  the  original  plan  of  one  central  society  and  insti- 
tution, by  means  of  denominational  jealousies  ;  and  gives  a  brief  sum- 
mary of  the  finances,  &c.,  of  the  undertaking,  as  follows: — 

"  Twelve  thousand  copies  of  our  call  were  sent  throughout  all  parts  of 
Germany.  The  sympathy  exhibited  is  altogether  encouraging  and 
delightful.  Some  hundreds  over  2,000  thalers  ($1,500)  are  already  col- 
lected ;*  the  beginning  of  the  harvest.  The  ministries  of  the  interior 
and  of  religion  have  recognized  and  approved  the  labors  of  the  society  ; 
his  excellency  Postmaster-General  Von  Nagler  has  granted  the  frank- 
ing privilege  for  sending  copies  of  the  call,  and  for  remittances ;  the 
school  councilors  of  the  various  governments,  and  those  authorities 
themselves,  have  assisted  earnestly  in  sending  the  call ;  and  the  school 
inspectors  have  assisted  in  collecting.  Many  of  them  also,  as,  for  in- 
stance, at  Potsdam  and  Frankfort-on-the-Oder,  have  sent  us  orders  for 
the  pamphlets  published  by  us  on  account  of  the  Foundation.  Princes 
.have  kindly  aided  the  purposes  of  the  society  by  contributions,  and 

*  January  12.    In  March,  the  sum  reachtd  about  7.000  thalers. 


PESTALOZZI'S  HUNDREDTH  BIRTHDAY  135 

many  private  persons  also  have  given,  some  in  one  amount,  and  some  in 
subscriptions  during  five  years.  But  what  has  encouraged  us  most,  is 
the  universal  sympathy  of  the  body  of  teachers ;  both  of  common 
schools,  and  upward,  even  to  the  universities.  What  has  a  poor  com- 
mon school  teacher,  or  a  seminary  pupil,  to  give  ?  But  they  do  give. 
I  have  received  with  warm  thankfulness  their  gifts,  from  one  silbergro- 
schen  upward.  They  give  with  poor  hands,  but  warm  hearts. 

"  From  five  or  six  different  places  we  have  received  offers  of  land  for  a 
location,  sometimes  for  nothing;  from  the  Mark  of  Brandenburg,  Silesia, 
Saxony,  &c. ;  we  hear  favorable  accounts  from  Dessau  and  Saxe-Mein- 
ingen ;  in  short,  we  have  good  hopes  that  the  plan  of  the  Pestalozzi 
Foundation  will  succeed.  The  festivals,  held  almost  every  where  to- 
day, will  assist  us  ;  and  we  count  with  certainty  on  the  aid  of  our  own 
fellow-citizens.  The  undertaking  is  spoken  well  of  by  every  one. 
Even  noble  ladies  are  enthusiastic  for  the  good  cause.  Three  sisters, 
whom  the  Genius  of  Poetry  overshadows,  (I  am  proud  of  being  their 
fellow  countryman.)  propose  to  publish  their  compositions  together  for 
for  the  benefit  of  the  Foundation.  Some  gentlemen  have  already  done 
the  like.  From  almost  every  locality  in  Germany,  from  Tilsit  to  Basle, 
from  Pesth  to  Bremen,  I  have  received  encouraging  and  sympathizing 
letters.  In  Pesth,  a  society  of  teachers  is  collecting  for  the  German 
Pestalozzi  Foundation;  contributions  have  come  in  from  the  Saxons  in 
Transylvania ;  in  Amsterdam  and  Groningen,  committees  have  been 
formed  for  the  same  purpose ;  we  are  expecting  money  from  across  the 
ocean.  In  Kb'nigsberg,  delegates  of  the  magistracy  and  city  authorities 
have  joined  with  the  committee  of  teachers,  the  more  worthily  to  cele- 
brate the  day." 

Several  pastors,  teachers,  and  officials  in  the  Canton  of  Aargau  put 
forth  a  call  for  a  Pestalozzi  festival  at  Brugg,  in  that  canton.  To  this 
there  soon  afterward  appeared  a  reply,  signed  by  a  number  of  Reformed 
clergymen  of  the  same  canton,  which  may  illustrate  the  character  of 
the  difficulties  to  which  Diesterweg  alludes.  This  reply  states,  in  sub- 
stance, that  the  signers  of  it  had,  several  years  before,  set  on  foot,  a 
subscription  for  a  similar  purpose,  (it  may  be  remarked  that  the  call  it- 
self recited  that  the  government  of  Aargau  resolved,  as  early  as  1833, 
to  erect  an  institution  for  the  education  of  neglected  poor  children,  as  a 
memorial  of  Pestalozzi ;  which,  however,  financial  considerations  ren- 
dered it  necessary  to  postpone;)  that  the  proposed  plan  of  operations 
was  unfortunate,  inasmuch  as 

1.  The  estate  of  Neuhof,  formerly  Pestalozzi's,  intended  to  be  bought 
as  a  site  for  the  Foundation,  was  unsuitable  and  ill-placed  for  such  a 
purpose,  too  large,  and  too  expensive. 

2.  Ostentatious  commemorations  of  donors  were  promised,  by  votive 
tablets,  &c. 

3.  The  intended  scheme  of  training  the  pupils  of  the  Foundation 
into  teachers  for  similar  institutions  is  not  practicable,  because  it  can  not 
be  determined  whether  they  are  capable  or  inclined  to  that  employment, 


136  PESTALOZZI'S  HUNDREDTH  BIRTHDAY. 

which  requires  rare  and  lofty  qualifications ;  and  because  experience 
shows  that  such  teachers  are  to  be  trained,  not  in  such  schools  for  them, 
but  in  a  course  of  actual  employment  under  proper  conditions. 

4.  Experience  shows  that  such  institutions  should  not  be  commenced 
on  a  large  and  expensive  scale,  but  by  means  of  single  individuals, 
properly  trained,  to  supply  the  place,  to  the  pupils,  of  fathers,  and  to 
begin  quietly,  with  a  small  number. 

5.  The  proposed  institution  is  to  receive  both  Reformed  and  Catho- 
lic children ;  a  plan  which  experience  shows  to  be  unlikely  to  succeed. 
And,  if  the  principal  be  decidedly  either  Catholic  or  Reforjned,  children 
of  the  other  communion  will  not  be  intrusted  to  him ;  and  if  he  is  not 
decidedly  of  either,  then  those  of  neither  will. 

These  reasons  are  clearly  and  strongly  stated,  and  seem  to  have  much 
force. 

At  the  festival  at  Basle,  Rector  Heussler  gave  some  odd  details  of 
Pestalozzi's  early  life ;  among  others,  "  He  was  so  careless  and  absent- 
minded  at  school,  that  his  teacher  once  remarked,  shrugging  his  shoul- 
ders. '  Heinrich  will  never  come  to  any  thing ; '  and  it  is  well-known  that, 
afterward,  when  he  was  at  the  summit  of  his  fame,  his  assistant,  Kriisi, 
confessed  that  he  (Pestalozzi,)  could  not  either  write  or  compute  de- 
cently ;  and  that  a  moderately  difficult  problem  in  multiplication,  or  di- 
vision, was  an  impossibility  to  him  at  the  age  of  fifty,  and  when  the 
most  eminent  Swiss  teacher  !  As  little  promising,  at  the  first  view,  was 
his  exterior ;  and  on  this  account  he  declared,  very  na'i'vely,  to  his  bride, 
that  he,  her  bridegroom,  was  outwardly  a  most  dirty  man,  as  all  the 
world  knew ;  and  that  he  presumed  that  this  was  not  the  first  time  she 
had  heard  so." 

Longer  or  shorter  accounts  are  given  in  the  Allgemeine  Schul-Zei- 
tung,  and  other  periodicals,  of  many  other  celebrations.  They  usually 
consisted  of  a  meeting,  at  which  addresses  were  delivered,  poems  recited, 
hymns  or  songs  sung ;  sometimes  followed  by  a  dinner,  with  toasts, 
short  speeches,  and  convivial  enjoyment.  There  was  also  a  practical 
part  of  the  ceremony,  viz.,  either  a  collection  for  the  central  society,  or 
the  organization  of  a  local  one. 

We  subjoin,  (from  the  Allg.  Sch.-Zeitung,}  parts  of  a  quaint  article, 
entitled  "  Considerations  on  the  character  most  suitable  for  a  memorial 
to  Pestalozzi"  and  signed  "  Frankf.  O. — P. — A. — Z.,"  which  contains 
much  humor  and  good  sense. 

"  But  by  what  means  is  it  proposed  to  fulfill  this  obligation  (to  Pesta- 
lozzi ?)  Many  persons  are  preparing  a  banquet  of  the  usual  character,  at 
so  many  silbergroschen  a  head,  including  half  a  quart  of  wine.  Pro- 
vision is  made,  also,  for  toasts,  solemn  and  not  solemn,  long  and  short ; 
and,  if  the  landlords  do  their  duty,  the  consequent  sickness  will  have 
been  slept  off  by  next  morning.  These  good  folks  do  not  obstruct  the 
progress  of  enlightenment,  but  they  are  not  par  excellence  strict  disci- 
ples of  Pestalozzi.  hi  other  places,  the  teachers,  especially,  are  to  be 
assembled,  inasmuch  as  they  claim  Pestalozzi  as  exclusively  one  of 


PESTALOZZI'S  HUNDREDTH  BIRTHDAY.  137 

themselves,  though  he  was  also  a  theologian  and  jurist.  These  gentlemen 
take  no  particular  measures  for  overloading  their  stomachs — for  reasons 
best  known  to  themselves.  '  On  the  other  hand,  they  are  laboring  upon 
poems  and  orations,  and  will,  perhaps,  produce  some  which  will  possess 
much  unction.  But  in  order  that  their  lights  may  not  put  each  other 
out,  and  that  the  imperium  in  imperio  may  not  perish,  they  assemble 
parish-wise,  renewing  the  idea  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  which  was 
neither  holy.  Roman,  nor  an  empire,  and  in  which  there  were  so  many 
principalities  that  the  State  was  invisible.  Naturally,  where  there  is  a 
festival  to  every  ten  schoolmasters,  the  12th  of  January  will  be  long 
enough  for  a  speech  and  toast  from  every  one.  On  this  occasion  the 
speakers  will  rather  look  away  from  the  present,  and  consider  the  future. 
Very  right :  this  was  with  Pestalozzi's  custom.  But  Pestalozzi  kicked 
down  with  his  feet  what  he  built  with  his  hands  ;  beware  that  you  do 
not  do  so.  Pestalozzi  often  used  his  heart  instead  of  his  head,  and 
reckoned  without  his  host;  see  that  you  do  not  imitate  him  in  this. 
Pestalozzi  understood  children's  hearts,  but  not  men's;  and  did  not 
avoid  the  appearance  of  evil,  if  only  it  did  not  appear  so  to  him ; 
beware  of  following  in  his  footsteps  in  this.  A  great  Foundation  is  to 
be  erected,  worthy  of  the  German  nation  ;  all  German  heads  are  to  be 
brought  together  under  one  German  hat,  for  the  sake  of  founding,  some- 
where— perhaps  on  the  Blocksberg — a  rescue  institution  for  morally 
endangered  children.  These  certainly  need  to  be  protected,  and  Pes- 
talozzi drew  attention  to  the  fact  fifty  years  ago,  and  sacrificed  his  health 
and  his  means  in  the  cause.  But  will  one  such  institution  serve,  how- 
ever large — or  ten,  or  twenty,  or  a  hundred — for  the  forty  millions  of 
German  population?  There  are  already  thirty  such  institutions  in 
Wirtemberg ;  and  there  are  still  many  children  there  in  urgent  need  of 
education  and  aid.  But  what  will  this  rescue  institution  do  ?  Even  if 
it  does  not  remain  without  a  roof,  like  the  Teutoburger  Hermann  with- 
out a  sword  ;  even  if  the  builders  finish  up  windows,  cellars,  and  stairs 
properly ;  the  chief  requisite  of  a  model  institution  is  wanting — the  father 
of  the  family.  Shall  he  be  found  in  Diesterweg's  seminary  at  Berlin, 
or  among  Harnisch's  pupils  at  Weisserifels  ?  Is  pietism,  or  illuminism, 
to  be  taught  in  it  ?  The  question  is  important  to  Germany,  and  Pes- 
talozzis  and  Oberlins  are  scarce.  One  Louise  Schepler  would  be  worth 
abundantly  more  than  a  council  of  ten  seminary  directors.  This  seems 
not  to  have  been  considered ;  the  building,  and  always  the  building,  of 
the  institution,  is  urged.  There  is  no  lack  of  model  institutions.  Nut 
to  cite  Wirtemberg,  there  is  the  Rauhe  Haus,  at  Hamburg — is  a  better 
one  wanted  ? 

';  Again  ;  are  neglected  children  to  be  sent  fifty  miles,  or  more,  by  mail- 
route,  with  a  policeman,  to  the  model  institution?  Or,  are  distant  do- 
nors to  have  nothing  but  a  distant  view  of  it?  Must  they  make  along 
journey  merely  to  get  a  sight  of  it  ?  '  But,'  it  is  said,  '  all  this  will  do  no 
harm,  if  the  occasion  shall  succeed  in  causing  a  union  of  the  German 
teachers.'  A  union— a  significant  word  !  Where  did  as  many  as  three 


138  PESTALOZZI'S  HUNDREDTH  BIRTHDAY. 

Germans  ever  unite,  unless  it  were  over  a  bottle?  And  still  more,  three 
German  schoolmasters,  each  quite  right  in  his  own  school !  Unite  ? 
With  whom  ?  Against  whom  ?  Does  not  '  unite '  mean  '  exclude  ? ' 
For  if  the  teachers  are  to  unite,  they  will  separate  from  the  clergy. 
Are  all  the  teachers  in  Germany  to  dissolve  their  present  relations,  arid 
array  themselves  under  a  pedagogical  general,  as  if  to  make  an  attack 
on  the  ministers?" 

The  writer  then  attacks  the  plan  of  selecting  teachers'  orphans,  in 
particular,  and  concludes  with  a  forcible  suggestion  of  the  necessity  of 
individual  sacrifice  and  effort,  as  the  only  true  mode  of  reforming  or 
protecting  unfortunate  children. 

"  Spend  no  more  time  in  building  and  in  choosing  heating  apparatus, 
but  take  vigorous  hold  of  the  work  itself.  Let  each  one  take  a  child, 
and  say,  '  He  shall  be  mine.  I  will  win  him  to  myself  with  love,  so  that 
he  shall  prefer  to  follow  me  rather  than  his  thievish  father  and  godless 
mother.  He  shall  stop  cursing,  because  he  loves  me;  and  stealing,  be- 
cause I  will  teach  him  better.  He  shall  enjoy  learning,  because  he 
shall  find  in  the  school  a  retreat  from  his  parents.  I  will  not  be  deterred 
by  dirt  or  ignorance,  if  I  can  only  save  a  soul,  and  spare  the  world  one 
criminal.  I  would  rather  make  my  house  a  rescue  house  for  him, 
than  to  send  him  to  a  Rauhe  Haus,  among  the  morally  neglected.' 

il  If  the  admirers  of  Pestalozzi — and  I  do  not  mean  teachers  alone — 
would  adopt  this  method  on  the  12th  of  January,  1846,  and  form  an  as- 
sociation, then  the  day  would  be  and  remain  a  blessing  to  Germany. 
God  grant  it ! " 


PUBLICATIONS  BY  AND   RELATING  TO  PESTALOZZL 

I.    WORKS  BY  PESTALOZZL* 


PESTALOZZI'S  WORKS,    (Werke,)    Tubingen,   1819-26.     Cotta.     15  vols. 
These  include: — 

a.  Leonard  and  Gertrude,  (Lienhard  und  Gertrud,)  vols.  1 — 4. 

b.  How  Gertrude  teaches  her  children,  (Wie  Gertrud  ihr  Kinder  lehrt,)vol.  5. 

c.  To    the   innocence,  earnestness,  and  nobility  of  my  fatherland,   (An  die 

Unschuld,  den  Ernst  und  den  Edelmuth  meines  Vaterlandes,)  vol.  6. 

d.  My  researches  upon  the  course  of  nature  in  the  development  of  the  human 

race,  (Heine  Nachforschungen  uber  den  Gang  der  Natur  in  der  Entwick- 
lung  des  Menschengeschlechts,)  vol.  7. 

e.  On  legislation  and  'child-murder,  (Ueber  Gesetzgebung  und  Kindermord,) 

vols.  7  and  8. 

f.  On  the  idea  of  elementary  education.     An  address  delivered  at  Lenzburg, 

1809,    (Ueber  die  Idee  der  Elementarbildung.     Eine  Rede,  gehalten  in 

Lenzburg,)  vol.  8. 

("  In  great  part  the  work  of  Niederer."— - Biber.    It  first  appeared  in  the 

"  Weekly  for  Human  Development,"  [  Wochenschrift  for  Menschenbil- 

dung.]) 

g.  Pestalozzi's  letter  to  a  friend  upon  his  residence  at  Stanz,  (Pestalozzi's  Brief 

an  einen  Freund  uber  seinen  Aufenthalt  in  Stanz,}  vol.  9. 
(This  first  appeared  in  the  "  Weekly.") 
h.   Vieivs  on  industry,  education,  and  politics,  (Ansichten  uber  Industrie,  Erzie- 

hung  und  Politik,)  vol.  9. 
i.  Address  to  my  household,  delivered  Jan.  12,  1818,  (Rede  an  mein  Haus, 

gehalten  den  12  Jdnner,  1818,)  vol.  9. 

k.  Figures  to  my  A  B  C-Book,  (Figuren  zu  meinem  A  B  C-Buch,)  vol.  10. 
1.    Views  and  experiences  relative  to  the  idea  of  elementary  education,  (Ansichten 
und  Erfahrungen,  die  Idee  der  Elementarbildung  betreffend,)  vol.  11. 
(This  had  before  appeared  under  the  name  of  "H.  Pestalozzi's  views, 
experiences,  and  means  to  secure  a  mode  of  education  adapted  to  hu- 
man nature."    Leipzig,  1807.) 

m.  On  the  principles  and  plan  of  a  periodical,  announced  in  the  year  1807, 
(Ueber  die  Grundsatze  und  den  Plan  einer  im  Jahre  1807  angekundigten 
Zeitschrift,)vo\.  11. 

n.  Report  to  parents  and  the  public  on  the  condition  and  organization  of 
Pestalozzi's  institution  in  the  year  1807,  (Bericht  an  die  Eltern  und  on 
das  Publicum  uber  den  Zustand  und  die  Einrichtungen  der  Pestalozzischen 
Anstalt  im  Jahre  1807,)  vol.  11. 
(This  had  already  appeared  in  the  "  Weekly^  for  Human  Development^ 

but  in  the  collective  edition  it  was  materially  enlarged.) 
o.  A  word  on  the  condition  of  my  pedagogical  enterprises,  and  on  the  organ- 
ization of  my  institution  during  the  year  1820,  (Ein  Wort  uber  den 
Zustand  meiner  pddagogischen  Bestrebungen  und  uber  die  Organisation 
meiner  AnstalV'im  Jahr  1820,)  vol.  11. 
p.  A  few  discourses  in  my  house  in  the  years  1808,  1809,  1810,  1811,  and 

1812,  (Einige  Reden  an  mein  Haus  in  den  Jahren  1808,  &c.,)  vol.  11. 
q.   Christoph  and  Else,  vol.  12. 
r.  Swan-song,  (Pestalozzi's  Schwanengesang,)  vol.  13. 
s.  Theory  of  Number  and  Form,  (Zahl  und  Formlhre,)  vol.  14. 

*  This  li&t  is  taken  from  Raumer's  "  History  <f  Pedagogy,'1  vol.  ii,  p.  489. 


140  PESTALOZZI.— LITERATURE. 

t.   Theory  of  Form  and  Dimension,  (Form  und  Grossenlehre,}  vol.  15. 

u.  Address  at  Langenthal,  Apr.,  16,  1826,  (Rede,  den  listen  April  1826,  in 

Langenthal  gehalten,}  vol.  15. 

Some  important  objections  have  been  made  to  this  edition  ;  primarily, 
that  it  is  imperfect. 

2.  WOEKS  OP  PESTALOZZI  not  included  in  the  collected  edition  of  1819-26. 

a.  Agis,  or  Spartan  legislation,  (Agis,  uber  die  Spartanische  Gesetzgebung.} 

(Pestalozzi's  first  work.) 

b.  Evening  hour  of  a  Hermit,  (Die  Abendstunde  eines  Einsiedlers.} 

(This  first  appeared  in  Iselin's  "  Ephemerides "  for  1780,  and  was  re- 
printed in  the  "  Weekly  for  Human  Development ,"  in  1807.) 

c.  A  Swiss  Gazette,  (Ein  Schweizer-Blatt,)  in  two  volumes,  1782  and  1783. 

(Not  being  acquainted  with  this,  I  do  not  know  whether  Pestalozzi  was 
sole  editor  or  not.  About  1798  he  published  another  "  Swiss  Pop- 
ular Gazette,"  under  authorization  from  government.)' 

d.  Pestalozzi's  elementary  works,  (PeslalozzVs  Elementarlucher,}  especially  the 

"Book  for  Mothers,"  (Buch  der Mutter,}  Tubingen,  1803.  The  "Intui- 
tional Theory  of  the  Relations  of  Size,"  (Anschauungslehre  der  Mass- 
verhaltnisse}  and  the  ''''Intuitional  Theory  of  the  Relations  of  Numbers," 
(Anschauungslehre  der  Zahlenverhdltnisse,}  by  Kriisi,  are  quite  as  im- 
portant for  Pestalozzi's  works  as  the  theories  of  Number,  Form,  and 
Size,  by  Schmid,  in  vols.  14  and  15. 

e.  Views  on  Subjects  to  which  the  Helvetian  Legislature  ought  specially  to 

direct  its  attention,  (Ansichten  uber  die  Gegenstande  auf  wekhe  die  Gesetz- 
gebung  Helvetiens  ihr  Augenmerk  vorzuglich  zu  richten  hat,}  Bern,  1802. 

f.  TTie  Fate  of  my  Life,  as  Principal  of  my  Educational  Institutions  at  Burg- 

dorf  and  Yverdun,  by  Pestalozzi,  (Meine  Lebensschicksale  als  Vorsteher 
meiner  Erziehungs-institute  in  Burgdorf  und  Iferten,}  Leipzig,  1826. 

g.  The  Instruction  of  the  Sitting-Room,  (Die  Kinderlehre  der  Wohnstiibe.} 

(Published  in  "  BosseVs  Monthly:"1} 

h.    Weekly  for  Human  Development,  ( Wochenschrift  fur  Menschenbildung,}  4 
vols.,  1807—1811. 

(In  this,  as  Avas  stated,  are  found  Pestalozzi's  Letter  on  his  residence 
at  Stanz,  the  Report  on  the  Institution  at  Yverdun,  and  the  Lenzburg 
address.) 

i.  Pestalozzi's  Educational  Enterprise,  as  related  to  the  culture  of  the  age, 

(Pestalozzi^  Erziehungs-Unternehmung  im  Verhaltniss  zur  Zeit-cultur.} 

(by  Niederer,)  1812. 

(In  this  is  a  letter  from  Pestalozzi  to  Niederer.) 

k.  Declaration  against  Canon  Bremfs  three  dozen  Newspaper  Questions,  (Erk- 
larung  gegen  Herrn  Chorherr  Bremi's  drey  Dutzend  Burklische  Zeitungs- 

fragen,}  Yverdun,  1812. 

3.  WORKS  OF  PESTALOZZI — in  part  not  included  in  the  above  list,  or  in  a  new 

arrangement. 

1.  Paternal  Instruction,  in  moral  explanation  of  words.     A   legacy   from 

Father  Pestalozzi  to  his  pupils.  (Vaterlehren  in  sittliclien  Wort- 
deuteungen.  Ein  Vermacldniss  von  Vater  Pestalozzi  au  seine  Zoglinge.} 
Revised  and  collected  by  Herman  Kriisi.  Trogen,  1829. 

(The  MS.  of  this  work  was  presented  by  Pestalozzi  to  Kriisi,  who  ed- 
ited it  with  addition  and  alteration.) 

2.  Letters  on  Early  Education.    Addressed  to  J.  P.  Greaves,  Esq.,  with  a 

memoir  of  Pestalozzi.     London,  1829. 

3.  Pestalozzi's  Life  and  Views,  in  verbatim  extracts  from  the  complete  works 

of  Pestalozzi.  (Pestalozzi's  Leben  und  Ansichten,  in  wortgetreuen 
Auszuge  seiner  gesammten  Schrifien.}  Published  with  reference  to  the 
festival  of  his  hundredth  birthday.  By  Roget  Christoffel.  Zurich,  1847. 
(An  excellent  selection,  affording  probably  the  best  general  view  acces- 
sible of  the  whole  subject,  and  made  on  a  principle  which  renders  it 
reliable  for  reference.  We  give  the  Table  ot  Contents.) 


PESTALOZZL— LITERATURE. 


141 


CHRISTOFFEL,  R.,  "  Pestalozzi's,  Life  and  Views,"  (Leben  und  Ansicliten,  in  wortget- 
Teuen  Auszuge  seiner  gesammten  Schriften.)     Znrcih,  1847. 


PART  I. 

PESTALOZZI'S  BIOGRAPHY,  IN  EXTRACTS 
FROM  HIS  OWN  WRITINGS. 

PACE. 

1.  Character  as  a  child, 1 

2.  Home, 2 

3.  Grandfather, 5 

4.  City  school 5 

5.  Similar  character  of  an  ancestor, 6 

G.  School  years 8 

7.  Choice  of  vocation,. V 11 

8.  Neuhof, 12 

9.  Becomes  an  author, 16 

10.  Poverty  and  friendship 21 

11.  Evening  hour  of  a  hermit 23 

12.  Stanz 32 

13.  Schoolmaster  at  Burgdorf, 48 

14.  Joins  with  Kriisi 55 

15.  Burgdorf  institution, 60 

16.  Moves  to  Miinchen-Buchsee, 62 

17.  Yverdun 63 

18.  The  institution  in  prosperity, 64 

19.  New  Years,  1808 81 

20.  "          "       1810 90 

21.  Christmas,  1810, 100 

22.  New  Years,  1811 108 

23.  "          "        1812, 117 

24.  72d  birthday 124 

25.  At  Neuhof,  in  his  old  age 141 

APPENDIX   TO   PART   I. 

a.  To  Jacob  Frohlich,  V.  D.  M., 144 

b.  To  Secretary  Iselin, 147 

PART    II. 
VIEWS   OF   NATURE   AND   MEN. 

I.  Spring 153 

II.  Summer, 154 

III.  Fables,  88  in  number 159 

IV.  Tales:— 

1.  Poor  Kunigunde, 213 

2.  The  braggart  of  freedom, 234 

3.  The  cotton-spinner, 238 

4.  The  village  shoemaker 239 

V.  Essays:— 

1.  Industry  and  its  perils, 244 

2.  The  farm  ing  population, 266 

3.  On  child-murder, 274 

4.  Tithes 281 

5.  Wake  up,  people !   (Revolutionary 

speech,) 293 

6.  Something  about  religion, 299 

PART  III. 

VIEWS   ON   EDUCATION   AND   INSTRUCTION. 
I.    EDUCATION. 

1.  Sketch  of  natural  education, 305 

2.  System  and  aim  of  true  education 313 

3.  From  maternal  love,  the  child  proceeds  to 

love  of  men  and  of  God, 316 

4.  Character  of  father  and  mother  influence 

result  of  education, 319 

5.  Development   of  child   to   true  manhood, 

with  relation  to  fellow-men 323 

6.  Development  of  child  in  relation  to  nature,  325 

7.  Result  of  want  of  parental  character  in 

earliest  instruction, 327 

8.  Faith  in   God  will  supply  to  parents  the 

proper  feelings 330 

9.  Sketch  of  an  institution   for  education  of 

the  jMJor 333 

II.    INSTRUCTION. 

1.  Elementary  means  of  instruction  are  num- 

ber, form,  speech, 337 

2.  First  means,  sound. 339 

A .  Tones 339 

B.  Words  or  names, 342 

C.  Language, ;)43 

3.  Second  means,  form, 35J 


PAGE. 

a.  Measuring 352 

b.  Drawing 356 

c.  Writing 356 

4.  Third  means,  number, 360 

a.  Arithmetic , 361 

III.    THE  SCHOOL  IN  BONNAL. 

1.  How  a  good  school  is  established, 3C4 

2.  Basis  of  a  good  school, 365 

3.  A  recruiting  officer's  doings, 367 

4.  A  proud  schoolmaster, 368 

5.  School  organ  ization, 369 

6.  Same,  continued, 370 

7.  God's  word  is  truth, 372 

8.  To  be  as  good  as   a  man  con  be,  it  is 

necessary  to  appear  bad, 373 

9.  He  who  disjoins  the  principles  of  arith- 

metic and  the  sense  of  truth,  puts 
asunder  what  God  has  joined, 374 

10.  A  proved  antidote   to    mean   and    false 

backbiting 376 

11.  A  fool's  words,  and  school  punishment,. 377 

IV.     RESULTS     OF  REFLECTION    AND    EXPE- 
RIENCE ON  ELEMENTARY  TRAINING,  378 — 446 

PART  IV. 

CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  A  SYSTEM  OF  PUBLIC 
INSTRUCTION,  AND  WORDS  TO  THE  FATH- 
ER-LAND. 

I.  THB    MUNICIPAL    ORGANIZATION    OF    BON- 
NAL. 

1.  Arner's  ordinances, 449 

2.  Arner  applies  his  principles  to  counteract 

the  besetting  sin  of  our  time — indo- 
lence,  455 

3.  Arner's  forms  of  process,  &c., 458 

4.  His  laws  against  theft 462 

5.  His  laws  for  protection  of  charity, 465 

6.  Influence  of  his  laws  on  love  of  pleasure, 

ease,  and  honor 468 

7.  Religion, 470 

8.  Superstition  and  irreligion, 472 

9.  How  Arner  protected  his  people  from  su- 

perstition,   473 

10.  A  word  on  the  necessity  of  divine  service 

for  perfecting  true  popular  enlighten- 
ment  475 

II.  Arner's    mode   of  celebrating    festivals 

both  is  adapted  to  the  character  and 
condition  of  farmers  and  serves  the  pur- 
poses both  of  a  wise  lawgiver  and  a 
pious  religious  teacher,  as  well  as  is 
adapted  to  the  personal  circumstances 
of  those  who  celebrate  it, 477 

12.  Hitherto  have  I  tended  from  the  begin- 

ning; and  if  you  say  No,  reader,  you 
muit  go  back  and  say  No  to  much  that 
goes  before, 483 

13.  Arner  takes  down  the  gallows,  erects  a 

hospital,  and  provides  for  the  hang- 
man,   487 

11.  MANAGF.MENT    OF    PRISONERS    AND    THEIR 
CHILDREN 488—500 

III.    APHORISMS  ON  PUBLIC  EDUCATION. 

1.  Consequences  of  public  punishment 500 

2.  How  can  the  legislator  prevent  crimes  ?.  .501 

3.  How  can   the  State  do  its  duty  to  illegit- 

imate children  ? 502 

4.  The  lawgiver  diminishes   vice  and  crime 

by  promoting  domestic  discipline. 505 

5.  Special  introduction  by   circumstances   to 

the  condition  of  servitude 506 

6.  The  legislator  founds  upon  the  inward  en- 

dowments and  tendencies  of  nature,. .  .507 

VI.    TO    MY    FATHER-LAND, 510 

515 

life,..  ...531 


Remarks 

Chronology  of  Pestalozz^' 
Concluding  remark 


142  PESTALOZZI.— LITERATURE. 

II.    WORKS  RESPECTING  PESTALOZZI  AND  His  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM. 

BANDLIN,  J.  II.,  Pestalozzi;  his  times,  his  fate,  and  his  labors.  A  work  for 
friends  of  human  culture  and  promoters  of  a  better  future.  (Pestalozzi,  seine 
Zeit,  seine  Schicksale,  und  sein  Wirken,  &c.)  Schaffhausen :  Brodtman.  1843. 

BIBER,  EDWARD,  Contribution  to  the  Biography  of  Heinrich  Pestalozzi, 
1827.  (Beitrag  Zur  B'iographie  H.  Pestalozzi.)  1827. 

(An  important  collection  of  documents  for  our  knowledge  of  the  last  fourteen 
years  of  Pestalozzi's  life ;  but  as  to  opinions  relative  to  Pestalozzi,  a  non  plus 
ultra  of  impiety  and  injustice.) 

BLOCHMANX,  K.  J.,  Heinrich  Pestalozzi. — Sketches  from  the  pictures  of  his 
life  and  labors;  from  his  own  testimony,  from  inspection,  and  information. 
(H.  Pestalozzi.  ZugeausdemBilde  seines  Lebeus  und  Wirkens  nach  Selbstzeugnissen, 
Anschauungen  und  MiUheilungen.)  Leipzig.  1846. 

BURKHART.  "Was  Pestalozzi  an  infidel  ?  ( War  Pestalozzi  ein  Unglaulnger  f) 
Leipzig:  Hartknoch.  1841. 

DIESTERWEG,  A.  II.,  Pestalozzi. — An  Address  at  the  festival  on  his  hun- 
dredth birthday,  January  12th,  1846,  delivered  at  Berlin  by  A  Diesterweg. 
(H.  Pestalozzi.  Rede  bei  der  Manner- Feier  seines  hundertjahrigen  Geburtstages  am 
12  Januar  1846,  zu  Berlin  gehalten  von  Adolph  Diesterweg.}  Berlin.  1846. 

SAME.  Pestalozzi. — A  word  on  him  and  his  immortal  services  to  children 
and  their  parents,  at  the  first  centennial  festival  of  his  birth.  By  A.  D.  Third 
edition.  (//.  Pestalozzi.  Ein  Wort  uber  ilm  und  seine  unsterblichen  Verdiente,  fur 
die  Kinder  und  deren  Eltern,  zu  dein  ersten  Sacularfeste  seiner  Geburt.  Von  A.  D. 
Dritte  Auftage.)  Berlin.  1845. 

DIESTERWEG,  Ratisch,  and  Massmann.  Festival  of  the  hundredth  birthday 
of  H.  Pestalozzi,  Berlin,  January  12,  1845.  (Die  Feier  de-s  lOQsten  Geburtstages 
Heinrich  Pesialozzi's,  in  Berlin  am  12  Januar  1845.)  Berlin.  1845. 

Essays  for  and  against  Pestalozzi's  System  of  Instruction.  1806.  (Aufsdtze 
fur  und  gegen  die  Pestalozzische  Unterrichtsmethode.) 

EWALD,  J.  LUDWIG,  Lectures  on  the  theory  and  art  of  education,  for  fathers, 
mothers,  and  educators.  ( Vorlesungen  uber  die  Erziehungskunst  fur  Vater,  Mut- 
ter, und  Erzieher.)  3  vols.  Manheim.  1808. 

GRUNER,  ANTON,  Letters  from  Burgdorf  on  Pestalozzi,  his  method  and  his 
institution.  Second  edition,  enlarged.  (Briefe  aus  Burgdorf  uber  Pestalozzi, 
seine  Methode  und  Anstalt.  Zweite  Auftage.)  Frankfort-on-the-Maine.  1806. 

HENNING,  (of  Coslin.)  Information  on  Pestalozzi's  peculiarities,  life,  and  edu- 
cational institutions.  (MiUheilungen  uber  H.  Pestalozzi 's  Eigenthumlichkeit,  Leben, 
und  Erziehungs-Anstalten.) 

(In  Harnisch's  "  School  Councilor  on  the  Oder"  (Schulrath  an  der  Oder,) 
Part  I.  1814.) 

HERB  ART.  Pestalozzi's  idea  of  the  rudiments  of  instruction.  (Pestalozzi's 
Idee  eines  ABC  des  Anschauungs,  von  Herbart.)  Gottingen.  1804. 

HEUSSLER.  Pestalozzi's  results  in  education,  (Pestalozzi1  s  Leistungen  im  Er- 
ziehung.yfache.)  Basle.  1836. 

ITHO,  JOIIANN,  Official  Report  on  the  Pestalozzi  Institution.  (Amllicher  Be- 
richt  uber  die  Pestalozzische  Anstalt.) 

KROGER,  J.  C.,  Information  on  Pestalozzi  and  his  methods  of  education. 
(Mittheilungen  uber  Pestalozzi  und  seine  Erziehungs-Methode.)  Hamburg.  1846. 

KRUSI.  Recollections  of  my  pedagogical  life,  before,  during,  and  since  my 
connection  with  Pestalozzi.  (Erinnerungen  aus  meinen  pddagogischen  Leben 
und  Wirken,  &c.)  Stuttgardt:  Cast.  1840. 

MONNICH,  W.  B.,  J.  H.  Pestalozzi,  painted  by  himself  and  by  others.  (J. 
H.  Ptstalozzi,  nach  ihm  selbst  und  Andern  geschildert.) 

In  the  "  Cotemporaries"  (Zdtgenossen.)     Leipzig.     1813. 

NIEDERER.  Pestalozzi's  educational  undertakings,  in  their  relation  to  the  cul- 
ture of  the  age.  (Pestalozzi's  Erziiehungs-Unteruehmung  im  Verhaltnisse  zur 
Zeitcultur.)  1812. 

PESTALOZZI-FOUNDATION.     The  German  Pestalozzi-Foundation.     First  finan- 


PESTALOZZI.— LITERATURE.  143 

cial  report,  by  Diesterweg  and  Kalisch.  (Die  Deutsche  Pestalozzi- Stiftung.  Ers- 
ter  Rechenschafts-bericht,  erstattet  von  Diesterweg  und  Kalisch.)  Berlin.  1847. 

PLAMANN,  J.  E.,  Some  fundamental  rules  of  the  art  of  instruction,  after 
Pestalozzi's  method,  applied  to  natural  history,  geography,  and  language. 
(Einzige  Grundregel  der  Unterrichts-kunst  nach  Pestalozzi's  Methode,  angewandt  in 
der  Naturgeschichte,  Geographic,  und  Sprache.)  Halle.  1805. 

RAMSAUER.  Short  sketches  of  my  pedagogical  life.  (Kurze  Skizze  ratines 
pddagogischen  Lebens.)  Oldenburg.  1838. 

RAUMER,  K.  von,  History  of  pedagogy.  (Geschichte  der  Pddagogik.)  Yol. 
2,  pp.  287,  412. 

Remarks  against  Pestalozzi's  system  of  instruction.  By  Steinmuller,  pastor. 
1803. 

W.  VON  TURK.  Letters  from  Miinchen-Buchsee  upon  Pestalozzi  and  his 
method  of  elementary  training.  (Briefe  aus  Miinchen-Buchsee  uber  Pestalozzi 
und  seine  Elementar-Bildungsmethod.)  Leipzig,  1806.  2  vols. 

FRENCH  WORKS  ON  PESTALOZZI. 

JULLIEN,  MARC  ANTOINE,  Spirit  of  the  method  followed  and  practiced  by 
Pestalozzi  in  the  educational  institution  at  Yverdun.  (Esprit  de  la  methode  de 
Pestalozzi,  suivie  et  praliquee  dans  P  institui  d1  education  d1  Yverdun.)  2  vols. 
Milan.  1812. 

PESTALOZZI.  Manuel  des  meres.  Traduit  del'  Allemand.  Geneva  and  Paris. 
1821. 

ENGLISH  WORKS  RELATIVE  TO  PESTALOZZI. 

BIBER,  E,  Henry  Pestalozzi,  and  his  plan  of  education;  being  an  account 
of  his  life  and  writings ;  with  copious  extracts  from  his  works,  and  extensive 
details  illustrative  of  the  practical  parts  of  his  method.  London.  1831. 

BLACKWOOD'S  MAGAZINE.    Pestalozzi's  system.    Yol.  66,  p.  93. 

EDINBURGH  REVIEW.    Pestalozzi's  system.    Yol.  47,  p.  119. 

GREAVES,  J.  P.,  Letters  and  extracts  from  MS.  writings.  Ham  Common. 
Surrey.  1843. 

HINTS  TO  PARENTS  on  the  cultivation  of  children,  in  the  spirit  of  Pestalozzi's 
method.  London.  1827.  (Six  parts.) 

PESTALOZZI.  Letters  on  early  education.  Addressed  to  J.  P.  Greaves,  Esq. 
Translated  from  the  German.  With  a  memoir  of  Pestalozzi.  London.  1827. 

PESTALOZZI.  Leonard  and  Gertrude.  Translated  from  the  German.  2  vols., 
12mo.  London.  1825. 

AMERICAN  WORKS  ON  PESTALOZZI. 

ACADEMICIAN.  This  educational  monthly,  edited  by  A.  and  J.  W.  Pickett, 
N.  Y.,  1818-19,  contains  a  brief  article  on  Pestalozzi's  system,  p,  214,  No.  14; 
and  a  series  of  seven  articles  on  the  same  subject,  in  Nos.  16-23 ;  the  first  on 
p.  245. 

ALCOTT,  A.  B.,  Pestalozzi's  principles  and  methods  of  instruction.  (Article 
in  American  Journal  of  Education,  Vol.  IV.,  No.  2,  March  and  April,  1829,  p.  97.) 

ALCOTT,  A.  B.,  Review  of  "  Maternal  Instruction,  &c.  In  the  spirit  of  Pes- 
talozzi." "American  Journal  of  Education ,"  Yol.  IV.,  No.  1,  January  and  Feb- 
ruary, 1829,  p.  53. 

DIAL.     Memoir  of  J.  P.  Greaves.     October  1842,  and  January  1843. 

LIVING  AGE.     Pestalozzi's  system.    Yol.  XXII.,  p.  461. 

MATERNAL  INSTRUCTION,  OR  HINTS  TO  PARENTS.  In  the  spirit  of  Pestal- 
ozzi's method.  Salem,  Mass.  1825. 

MUSEUM.     Memoir.     Vol.  XIIT.,  p.  278,  and  Yol.  XIX.,  p.  493. 

RIPLEY,  GEORGE,  Memoir  of  Pestalozzi,  in  "  Christian  Examiner.11  Yol.  XL, 
p.  347. 

UNITED  STATES  LITERARY  GAZETTE.  Pestalozzi's  system.  Vol.  L,  pp.  344, 
372. 


ASSISTANTS  AND  DISCIPLES  OF  PESTALOZZI. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 

BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCHES  of  several  of  the  assistants  and  disciples  of  Pestalozzi,  -       -  145 

Preface, I49 

I.  Johannes  Niederer, 151 

II.  Hermann  Kriisi,  -.-••••••••••«  161 

III.  Johannes  Buss, 193 

IV.  Joseph  Schmid, 202 

V.  John  George  Tobler. -  205 

VI.  John  Ramsauer, -  213 

VII.  John  Ernst  Plamann, 217 

IX.  Hans  George  Nageli, 220 

X.  Johannes  Harnisch, 221 

XI.  Karl  Augustus  Zeller, 223 

XII.  Charles  Christian  Wilhelm  von  Tiirk, 155 

XIII.  Bernhard  Gottlieb  Denzel,         ...                227 

XIV.  Friedrich  Adolf  Wilhelm  Diesterweg, 229 

Gustavus  Frederick  Dinter, ......232 


PREFACE. 


PESTALOZZI'S  power,  as  a  doer  of  good,  was  based  upon  his  untiring 
energy  and  his  impregnable  benevolence  and  faith  in  human  nature. 
His  intellectual  endowments,  in  the  endeavor  to  develop  into  a  complete 
system  the  principles  which  he  felt  so  strongly,  failed  him,  and  he  con- 
tinually became  obscure  and  contradictory.  His  method  of  instruction 
was  as  spontaneously  and  unpremeditatedly  the  result  of  instinct,  as  the 
benevolence  which  inspired  him ;  but  he  was  unable  to  state  its  princi- 
ples philosophically,  or  to  develop  his  methodology  logically. 

Thus  he  was  obliged  to  rely,  to  a  degree  unusual  for  the  leader  of  a 
great  reform,  upon  assistants,  even  for  the  statement  of  his  views,  and 
the  details  of  his  modes  of  operation ;  and,  according^,  an  account  of 
himself,  and  of  his  labors,  must,  in  order  to  be  complete,  contain  an  ap- 
parently excessive  proportion  of  narrative  relating  to  them. 

In  finding  such  assistants,  Pestalozzi  was  remarkably  fortunate.  Nie- 
derer,  Schmid,  Kriisi,  Buss,  Tobler,  and  many  more  of  the  numerous 
teachers  at  Burgdorf  and  Yverdun,  were  all  men  of  remarkable  capacity, 
either  for  some  one  department  of  investigation  and  instruction,  or  for 
good  qualities  of  mind  and  heart,  which  endeared  them  to  Pestalozzi, 
each  other,  and  the  pupils  ;  often  for  both.  And  still  more  remarkable 
than  such  endowments  is  the  eminent  and  persevering  self-denial  with 
which  some  of  them — as  Niederer — giving  up  positions  of  comfort  and 
influence,  already  secured,  entered  the  ill-managed  and  disorderly  in- 
stitution, and  remained  there,  year  after  year,  sometimes  with  small 
salaries  and  sometimes  with  none,  and  not  even  always  finding  abund- 
ance of  ordinary  food,  through  evil  report  and  good  report,  until  abso- 
lutely convinced  that  their  usefulness  in  it  was  ended.  Nor  was  this  all. 
With  the  single  exception  of  Schmid,  Pestalozzi's  teachers  resigned  to 
him  whatever  of  fame  and  profit  might  have  come  from  the  manuals  they 
compiled  in  their  respective  studies,  and  the  books  were  published  either 
as  by  Pestalozzi  himself,  or  as  the  productions  of  the  institution.  Ac- 
counts of  these  assistants  will  be  found  in  the  following  pages ;  some  of 
them  reasonably  complete,  but  some,  owing  to  the  scarcity  of  accessible 
materials,  somewhat  scanty. 

The  present  work  also  contains  short  biographies  of  some  of  the  more 
prominent  of  those  who  were  instrumental  in  propagating  Pestalozzi's 
views  and  methods  in  Germany.  The  introduction  of  his  system  into 
Germany  constitutes  the  most  remarkable  chapter  in  the  history  of 
modern  education. 

Of  this  chapter,  a  portion,  complete  within  itself,  and  both  interesting 


148  PREFACE. 

and  important,  consists  of  the  introduction  of  Pestalozzianism  into  the 
kingdom  of  Prussia. 

During  the  subjugation  of  Germany  under  Napoleon,  the  minds  of  the 
best  and  ablest  of  the  Prussian  statesmen  and  philosophers  were  most 
eagerly  occupied  in  inventing  means  which,  if  not  available  for  an  imme- 
diate struggle  for  independence,  should  at  once  begin  the  work  of  raising 
the  moral,  mental,  and  physical  character  of  the  nation  to  a  standard  of 
elevated  development,  which  might  insure  such  a  struggle  in  future,  and 
its  success. 

Among  the  instrumentalities  used  for  this  purpose,  which,  together, 
amounted  almost  to  an  entire  reorganization  of  the  kingdom,  the  improve- 
ment in  education,  resulting  from  the  introduction  of  the  Pestalozzian  sys- 
tem— and  still  more  of  the  spirit  of  that  system — occupied  a  prominent 
place.  To  the  King  and  Queen,  to  the  ministry  of  education,  to  Fichte, 
in  short,  to  the  most  influential  public  men  of  that  day,  Postal  ozzi's  views 
seemed  to  promise  the  happiest  results ;  and,  with  a  rare  liberality  and 
decision,  measures  were  at  once  taken  to  prove  them  experimentally  and 
thoroughly. 

These  measures  were  two :  the  employment  of  an  able  Pestalozzian  in 
founding  or  reforming  institutions  already  existing,  and  the  sending  to 
Yverdun  young  men  of  promise,  to  draw  their  inspiration,  as  teachers, 
from  the  fountain-head  of  the  new  method. 

Carl  August  Zeller  was  chosen  to  perform  the  former  task,  and  was,  in 
the  year  1809,  invited  from  Wirtemberg,  where  he  had  been  laboring 
zealously  among  the  teachers  to  introduce  the  new  method,  to  Konigs- 
berg,  in  East  Prussia,  on  terms  honorable  to  the  government  and  to  him- 
self. He  was  received  with  enthusiasm,  and  set  himself  earnestly  to 
work,  lecturing,  instructing,  reorganizing,  with  untiring  zeal,  industry, 
and  efficiency.  Notwithstanding  a  few  errors  of  judgment,  his  labors 
gave  a  great  and  lasting  impulse  to  education  in  that  portion  of  Prussia ; 
and  one  at  least  of  the  institutions  he  founded,  at  Karalene  (i.  e.,  Livo- 
nian  for  "  Queen,")  in  the  government  of  Gumbinnen,  is  yet  useful  as  an 
orphan-house  and  teachers1  seminary. 

The  second  measure  taken  by  government  was  the  sending  of  young 
men  to  be  educated  as  teachers  in  the  Pestalozzian  principles.  Those  se- 
lected were  mostly  chosen  from  among  the  most  promising  of  the  theo- 
logical students.  Two,  Marias  Schmid  and  Dr.  Harnisch,*  were  sent  to 
Plamann's  institution,  at  Berlin  ;  the  remaining  ones,  Henning,  Dreist, 
Kawerau,  Kratz,  Rendschmidt,  Preuss,  Patzig,  Braun,  Steger,  Marsch, 
Ksionzek,  the  brothers  Bernhard,  and  four  already  teachers  by  profes- 
sion, Hanel,  Titze,  Runge,  and  Baltrusch,  were  sent  to  Yverdun  at  various 
.times  during  a  series  of  years,  their  expenses  being  paid  by  government. 
Upon  their  return,  they  were  employed  in  various  institutions  for  the 
training  of  teachers,  most  of  them  with  success.  Thus  a  large  body  of 

*  Wilhelm  Harnisch,  the  well-known  educator,  from  whose  ''Present  Condition  of  the. 
Prussian  Common  School  System,"  (Leipzig,  1844,)  much  of  the  information  in  this  article  is 
derived. 


PREFACE.  149 

competent  instructors  in  the  new  method  was,  in  a  comparatively  short 
time,  scattered  among  the  Prussian  schools ;  the  spirit  of  the  Pestalozzian 
method  satisfied  the  needs  of  the  age ;  and,  with  the  powerful  twofold 
aid  of  popular  favor  and  the  earnest  influence  of  the  whole  power  of  the 
government,  it  speedily  took  possession  of  the  entire  common  school  sys- 
tem. Every  where,  the  authorities  co-operated  zealously  with  the  teach- 
ers under  the  new  methods.  Queen  Louise,  and  under  her  influence  the 
King,  took  so  deep  an  interest  in  the  reform,  that  they  often  visited  the 
schools  where  it  was  introduced.  The  Queen,  especially,  often  remained 
in  them  for  hours ;  caused  reports  to  be  made  to  her  on  the  progress  of 
the  schools  generally;  and  was  judicious  and  liberal  in  encouraging  and 
rewarding  instructors  and  educators. 

While  these  measures  effectually  inaugurated  the  new  system,  a  share 
of  the  credit  of  it  is  due  to  those  teachers  and  school  officers  who, 
though  not  themselves  trained  under  Pestalozzi,  and  not  always  accept- 
ing his  methods  of  instruction,  in  every  particular,  yet  entered  fully  into 
his  spirit,  and  labored  in  union  with  his  more  immediate  disciples,  with 
a  zeal  and  efficiency,  perhaps,  rather  increased  than  decreased  by  the 
free  development  of  the  individualities  of  their  various  views.  Indeed, 
one  of  the  most  valuable  features  of  what  may  be  called  the  Prussian- 
Pestalozzian  system,  was  its  deliberate  and  careful  but  free  advance  to- 
ward such  improvements  upon  the  system  of  Pestalozzi  himself;  a  pro- 
ceeding which  has  secured  the  highest  excellence  of  the  original  system, 
has  added  to  it  much  that  is  valuable,  has  insured  that  vivid  and  inter- 
ested activity  in  the  teachers  which  is  the  first  requisite  of  successful  in- 
struction, and  has  prevented  the  decay  and  deadness  into  which  servile 
followers  of  exclusive  rules  must  necessarily  fall. 

The  praises  thus  bestowed  upon  the  Prussian  common  schools,  as  thus 
reformed,  reflect  no  blame  upon  those  teachers  and  conductors  who  neg- 
lected, or  even  opposed,  the  new  methods.  The  principal  among  these 
were  followers  of  Basedow  and  the  Philanthropists ;  institutions  of  this 
class  were  the  Schnepfenthal  Institution,  and  the  Hartung  School,  and 
the  Real  School,  at  Berlin ;  and  among  the  men  were  Nolte,  Zerrenner, 
and  Dinter.* 

The  introduction  of  the  Pestalozzian  system  into  the  schools  of  Prus- 
sia, may  be  said  to  have  been  in  progress  from  1812  to  1825 ;  at  the  end 
of  which  time  it  had,  substantially,  possession  of  the  whole  common 
school  system.  Dr.  Harnisch  enumerates,  as  among  the  chief  advant- 
ages resulting  from  it,  1.  Patriotic  feeling,  causing  more  thorough  study 
of  the  German  language,  home  geography,  &c. ;  2.  Giving  a  high  value 
and  place  to  vocal  music,  as  a  study ;  3.  The  same  of  drawing,  espe- 
cially under  the  teachings  of  Peter  Schmid ;  4.  Introduction  of  thor- 
ough musical  instruction;  5.  Introduction,  or  readoption  of  thorough 
system  of  bodily  training.  ^ 

*  However  strongly  Dinter  may  have  professed  to  hold  on  to  the  old  ways,  no  avowed  Pes- 
talozzian ever  labored  more  devotedly  in  the  spirit,  and  with  the  aims  and  methods  of  Pes- 
talozzi, as  our  readers  will  see  in  the  memoir,  p.  231. 


150  PREFACE. 

From  Prussia  the  principles  and  practice  of  the  school  of  Pestalozzi 
were  widely  diffused  in  other  countries,  through  travelers,  often  coming 
exclusively  for  the  purpose  of  investigating  the  Prussian  system,  and 
sometimes  sent  by  foreign  governments  for  the  purpose.  Dr.  Harnisch 
gives  a  long  list  of  names  of  visitors  to  a  single  seminary  only,  mostly 
of  persons  eminent  in  education,  among  which  are  mentioned  those  of 
Hon.  Horace  Mann,  and  Profs.  Stowe  and  Bache,  from  the  United  States. 

The  present  occasion  does  not  admit  of  any  extended  reference  to  the 
further  spread  of  Pestalozzianism.  We  can  only  say  that  prominent 
among  those  who  transferred  the  system  into  France,  was  Victor  Cousin, 
whose  able  report  is  well  known  ;  and  Chevalier  Jullien,  who,  at  an  ear- 
lier date,  drew  up  an  extended  report  upon  the  school  of  Yverdun,  and 
the  educational  principles  and  methods  of  Pestalozzi.  The  labors  of  Dr. 
Biber,  Mr.  Greaves,  and  at  a  later  date  of  Dr.  Mayo  and  Miss  Mayo,  and 
of  Sir  James  Kay  Shuttleworth,  M.  Tilleard,  and  Mr.  Tait,  have  done  much 
to  spread  the  system  in  England.  And  among  its  advocates  and  propa- 
gators in  America  were  William  Russell,  editor  of  the  "American 
Journal  of  Education;'1'1  Warren  Colburn,  whose  celebrated  arithmetics 
are  strictly  Pestalozzian ;  A.  Bronson  Alcott ;  W.  C.  Woodbridge,  the 
geographer  and  editor  of  the  "Annals;"  and  Lowell  Mason,  the  veteran 
and  efficient  instructor  in  vocal  music. 

It  should  be  added,  that  the  present  work  does  not  contain  sketches 
of  those  who  applied  Pestalozzi's  principles  to  reformatory  schools  proper, 
charitable  schools,  &c.,  for  the  reason  that  the  accounts  of  those  persons 
are  contained  in  the  editor's  volume  on  REFORMATORY  EDUCATION.* 

*  Papers  on  Prevention,  Correctional,  and  Reformatory  Institutions  and  Agencies  for  Juve- 
nile Delinquency.  New  York,  F.  C.  BROWNELL,  1859,  360  pages. 


JOHANNES  NIEDERER. 

JOHANNES  NIEDERER,  whose  reputation  as  a  teacher  is  nearly  con- 
nected with  that  of  Pestalozzi,  and  stands  high  amongst  those  of  his 
fellow-laborers,  was  born  in  1778,  in  Appenzell.     Having  completed 
his  studies,  he  was  already  settled  as  pastor  when  the  fame  of  Pes- 
talozzi's  plans  and  labors  reached  him,  and  set  his  whole  soul  in 
motion.     Unlike  those  who  can  not  soon  enough  shake  the  dust  of 
the  school  from  their  feet  to  seat  themselves  in  the  pulpit,  Niederer 
resigned  his  pastorate  in  1800,  and  hastened  to  connect  himself  with 
Pestalozzi.     In  the  institution  of  the  latter,  he  had  special  charge  of 
the  religious  instruction.     His  manner  in  giving  this,  and  in  his  whole 
labors  as  a  teacher,  is  so  well  described  by  his  efficient  fellow-laborer, 
Kriisi,  in  his  recent  "  Recollections  of  my  pedagogical  life  and  work" 
(Erinnerungen  aus  meinem  pddagogischen  Leben  und  Wirken,)  p.  39, 
that  we  shall  make  an  extract :  Kriisi  says,  "  To  be  present  at  the 
religious  instruction  of  Niederer,  and  at  his  confirmations,  was  sure 
to  have  a  good  influence  upon  the  heart.     Good  preparatory  instruc- 
tion in  intellect  and  language  was  necessary,  in  order  to  appreciate  it, 
it  is  true ;  but  this  was  to  ba  enjoyed  in  the  institution.     Although 
he  soon  passed  over  the  history  of  creation,  the  gospel  of  John,  and 
the  sermon  on  the  mount,  yet  the  instruction   he  derived  from  these 
sources  as  to  the  faith,  had  a  complete   character,  and  afforded  deep 
views  of  the  essence  of  religion  and  of  the  scope  of  human  duty.     I 
several  times  attended  the   whole  course  ;  and  how  highly  I  valued 
the  privilege  may   be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  I  forthwith  sent 
three  of  my  children  to  attend,  that  they  might  learn  from  him  the 
happiness  of  religion.     Niederer  filled  an  important  part  in  Pestal- 
ozzi's   institution  and  history.     He  earnestly  devoted  his  time  and 
strength  to  the  subjects  of  religion,  language,  literature,  and  philos- 
ophy.    He  first  studied  Pestalozzi's  works,  in  their  various  applica- 
tions to  pedagogy,  politics,  legislation,  &c.,  not  resting  until  he  had 
ascertained  the  central  point  from  which  they  all  radiate ;  for  to  con- 
sider them  only  in  their  separate  character,  was  insufficient  for  him 
as  a  thinker  and  investigator.     But  he  did  not  limit  his  labors  to 
writings  and  thinking  only,  nor  even  to  the  numerous  studies  success- 
fully pursued  in  the  institution,  and  the  labors  to  be  pursued  in  vari- 
ous directions,  and  amongst  various  materials,  with  reference  to  those 


152  JOHANNES  NIEDERER. 

studies  ;  but  embraced,  in  the  scope  of  his  inquiries,  the  nature,  exist- 
ence, powers,  and  weaknesses  of  man  ;  his  course  of  development,  his 
future  fate  and  destiny,  in  the  individual,  the  nation,  and  the  race. 

Niederer  possessed  the  fullest  confidence  of  Pestalozzi,  who  con- 
sulted him  on  all  occasions,  and  saved  himself  by  his  means  from 
many  mistakes.  Niederer  opposed  himself  to  any  views  or  efforts 
within  the  institution  which  threatened  to  break  up  or  hamper  its 
usefulness,  and  was  variously  active  in  contending  against  them. 

In  literature,  Niederer  has  been  less  active  than  was  to  be  wished 
from  a  man  so  rich  in  endowments  and  experience.  Besides  a  series 
of  small  treatises,  we  have  only  one  larger  work  :  "  Pestalozzi's  ed- 
ucational enterprise  in  its  relations  to  cotemporary  civilization" 
(Pestalozzi's  Erziehungsunternehmung  im  Verhdltniss  zur  Zeitcul- 
tur,)  Stuttgart,  1812,  2  vols.  The  wish  was  often,  and  with  good 
reason,  expressed,  that  he  would  publish  a  scientific  exposition  of 
pedagogy  on  Pestalozzi's  principles.  A  biography  of  the  great 
teacher  himself,  from  his  pen,  would  have  been  gratefully  received. 
Still  more  welcome,  had  it  pleased  him  to  write  it,  would  have  been 
an  account  of  his  method  of  religious  instruction ;  especially  now, 
when  so  many  are  endeavoring  to  fix  that  most  important  of  all  de- 
partments of  instruction  upon  a  half-ascertained  psychological  basis, 
and  to  entangle  it  with  religious  parties.  He  however  died,  in  1843, 
without  having  performed  this  work. 

Niederer's  wife,  previously  Rosette  Kasthofer,  of  Berlin,  where  she 
was  born,  3rd  November,  1779,  conducted  fora  long  time  the  girls' 
school  established  by  Pestalozzi  at  Yverdun,  along  with  his  boys' 
school.  The  institution  was,  however,  transferred  to  Geneva,  where 
it  is  now  established.  Madame  Niederer  has  also  established,  in  con- 
nection with  it,  a  seminary  for  young  women  intending  to  become 
teachers  ;  and  in  both  she  is  yet  laboring,  with  youthful  freshness  and 
enthusiasm.  In  1828,  was  published  a  valuable  work  by  her  :  "  Glan- 
ces at  the  system  of  female  education.  For  educated  mothers  and 
daughters"  (Blicke  in  das  Wesen  der  weiblichen  Erziehung.  Fur 
gebildete  Mutter  und  Tbchter.)  Berlin  :  Riicker.  She  has  also  pub- 
lished "  Dramatic  Games  for  the  Young?  (Dramatische  Jugcnd- 
spiele.)  Aarau,  1838,  2  vols. 

We  find  the  following  estimate  of  Niederer,  by  Pestalozzi,  ex- 
pressed at  different  times. 

"The  mode  in  which  Niederer  looks  at  my  work  can  not  be  sep- 
arated from  that  in  which  I  myself  see  it.  His  views  are  almost  all 
the  results  of  his  reflections.  I  scarcely  know  what  it  is  to  reflect. 
My  opinions  and  views  are  almost  all  the  results  of  immediate  intui- 
tion and  of  excited  feelings.  Moreover,  I  did  not  understand  his 


JOHANNES  NIEDERER.  jrjg 

language  ;  but  his  Vindication  taught  me  to  understand  it.  I  could 
not  satisfy  myself  with  reading  that  production.  I  found,  myself,  in 
it,  almost  in  every  line,  more  clearly  and  distinctly  stated,  and  more 
profoundly  comprehended,  than  I  had  comprehended  and  expressed 
myself,  on  systems  of  education,  on  maternal  instinct,  on  the  nature 
and  organization  of  schools,  on  my  institution,  in  short,  on  all  the 
principles  and  views  which  were  in  point  at  the  time." — Fortunes  of 
My  Life. 

"  He  has,  at  the  same  time,  peculiarities  which  I  often  endure  only 
with  difficulty,  since  they  are  diametrically  opposed  to  mine.  But 
his  friendship  surpasses  all  the  friendship  that  I  have  enjoyed  or  even 
dreamed  of  in  my  life.  What  more  can  a  man  do  for  a  friend,  than 
for  his  sake  to  give  up  a  certain,  quiet,  and  agreeable  mode  of  living, 
and  to  put  himself  into  a  condition  uncertain,  unpleasant,  oppressive, 
and  in  many  respects  dangerous  ?  This  Niederer  has  done.  For  my 
sake  he  gave  up  the  pastorate  where  he  was  living,  efficient,  respected, 
and  happy,  joined  himself  to  me  and  my  poverty,  threw  himself  into 
all  my  embarrassments,  at  a  period  when  my  work  was  not  yet  ripe 
in  itself,  and  when  I  was  almost  wholly  deprived  of  all  external  aid 
and  co-operation  in  it.  At  that  time  he  was  the  only  man  of  any 
degree  of  literary  cultivation  who  took  a  place  at  my  side,  and  took 
part  in  all  the  perils  to  which  my  undertaking  could  and  did  expose 
him.  And  his  friendship  extended  beyond  me  personally,  and  to  the 
purpose  of  my  life,  in  regard  to  which  I  so  often  saw  myself  deserted. 
He  is  drawn  toward  me  personally  as  little  as  I  toward  him.  I  might 
say  that,  in  this  respect,  we  were  not  as  near  each  other  as  is  to  be 
expected  from  men  living  so  near ;  but  his  life  is  a  friendship :  his 
endurance  and  perseverance  for  my  objects — even  the  contest  which 
he  continually  keeps  up  with  himself  and  with  me,  for  the  promotion 
of  the  purpose  of  my  life — even  his  opposition  to  and  arguments 
against  me  individually,  when  he  finds  himself  in  conflict  with  my 
designs — show  the  noble,  remarkable,  and  pure  character  of  his 
friendship.  If  he  withstood  me  less,  he  would  love  me  less." — Dec- 
laration Against  Canon  Bremi's  Questions,  p.  28. 

"  As  early  as  at  the  begininng  of  our  association  in  Burgdorf,  there 
came  amongst  us  a  young  clergyman,  of  thorough  education,  full  of 
fire,  power,  and  quiet  though  strong  efficiency,  and  observed  in  silence 
the  course  of  our  labors.  In  this  first  stage  of  his  design,  he  resem- 
bled nothing  less  than  one  seeking  a  predominant  influence  upon  the 
general  and  practical  course  of  our  undertaking.  On  the  contrary, 
his  whole  conduct  indicated,  at  the  beginning,  very  clearly,  that  he 
was  investigating  the  psychological  basis  of  the  principles  and  essence 
of  our  idea  of  elementary  training,  more  seriously,  broadly,  and 


154  JOHANNES  NIEDERER. 

deeply  than  any  one  before  him,  by  means  of  a  free,  individualized, 
and  independent  reflection  upon  them.     By  this  course  he  very  soon 
elaborated  a  system  of  his  own,  as  to  our  idea  of  elementary  training, 
•which,  it  is  true,  was  not  made  inwardly  complete  and  outwardly  ap- 
plicable by  any  basis  whatever  of    practical  experience,  but  which 
inspired  him  with  such  a  visionary  enthusiasm  for  its  infallibility  and 
applicableness,  that  all  at  once  he  suddenly  began  to  take  an  active 
and  powerful  part  in  the  whole  extent  of  our  operations ;  so  as  grad- 
ually to  acquire  a  universal  and  predominating  influence  over  them, 
and  to  gain  my  own  con6dence  to  a  high  degree.     His  singular  char- 
acter inspired  him  with  the  definite  design  of  opposing  the  weaknesses, 
faults,  and  defects  of  my  establishment,  by  means  of  scientific  expo- 
sitions of  the  idea  which  lay  at  the  base  of  our  undertakings.     He 
believed  confidently  that,  by  the  magic  touch  of  his  lucid  ideas,  or 
frequently  even  by  significant  words,  he  could  prevent  the  increase  of 
that  fatal  influence  whose  greatness  he  deeply  felt ;  and  that,  by  verbal 
elucidations,  he  could  control  what  he  could  not  lead  intellectually  by 
the  weight  of  his  influence,  nor  practically  manage,  and  could  least  of 
all  carry  forward  by  his  creative  energy  by  actual  executive  measures. 
Niederers  requirement  of  absolute  acquiescence  in  his  views,  arose 
from  ideas  which  he  had  not  made  clear  and  definite  to  himself  in 
their  whole  extent  and  connection ;  for  he  was  prone  to  lose  himself 
in  metaphysical  expositions  of  his  ideas,  which  he  was  neither  fitted 
to  do  by  possessing  a  solid  substratum  of  intuitional  knowledge,  nor 
competent  to  express  in  any  manner  by  simple,  clear,  and  intelligible 
language,  and  thus  to  make  properly  comprehensible.     Most  of  the 
objects  he  sought  and  urged  were,  to  us,  mere  atmospheric  phenome- 
na, without  any  connection  whatever  with  the  basis  of  our  actual  life. 
He  was,  throughout,  unfitted   and   almost  incapable  of   giving  the 
slightest  practical  demonstration  of  his  high-sounding  ideas.     This  he 
knew  himself;  and  often  required  with  earnestness  that  others  should 
not  only  receive,  as  he  did,  what  he  had  constructed  in  his  ideal  man- 
ner, but  also  that  they  should  work  them  out  in  actual  practice  to  his 
satisfaction,  and  that  without  requiring  much  co-operation  from  him." 
— Fortunes  of  My  Life,  p.  29. 


KARL  CHRISTIAN  WILHELM  VON  TURK 


KARL  CHRISTIAN  WILHELM  VON  TURK,  was  born  at  Meiningen, 
January  8,  1774.  He  was  the  youngest  son  of  Chamber-president 
and  High  Marshal  von  Turk,  who  was  of  a  noble  Courland  family, 
and  in  the  service  of  the  duke  of  Saxe-Meiningen.  At  his  mother's 
death,  when  a  boy  of  six  years  old,  he  was  transferred  to  the  family 
of  his  mother's  brother,  Grand  Huntsman  von  Bibra,  at  Hildburg- 
hausen,  where  he  was  brought  up  with  his  cousins  under  a  strict  tutor. 
At  seventeen  and  a  quarter  years  old,  without  having  attended  any 
public  school,  he  entered  the  University  of  Jena,  where  he  found  in 
his  elder  brother  Ludwig,  who  had  already  been  studying  there  a  year 
and  a  half,  a  true  friend  and  a  pattern  of  industry  and  good  conduct ; 
and  where  he  contracted  a  close  friendship  with  several  cotemporaries, 
amongst  whom  were  T.  von  Hardenberg,  known  as  a  poet  under  the 
name  of  Novalis,  and  von  Bassewitz,  afterward  Chief  President  and 
his  own  official  superior. 

After  completing  his  legal  studies,  in  1793,  he  offered  himself  for 
an  office  under  government  in  Meiningen,  which  had  been  promised 
him  while  his  father  was  Chamber-president  and  his  brother  a  govern- 
ment official,  notwithstanding  the  strictness  of  the  examination.  What, 
however,  his  knowledge  and  capacity  did  not  enable  him  to  attain,  he 
secured  by  means  of  a  very  ordinary  social  talent.  During  a  visit  in 
Hildburghausen,  the  Prince,  then  Duke  Karl  of  Mecklenburg,  father  of 
Queen  Louise  of  Prussia,  found  that  he  was  a  skillful  ombre-player ;  and 
he  took  so  strong  a  liking  to  him  that  afterward,  upon  receiving  the 
principality  by  the  unexpected  death  of  his  brother,  he  determined  to 
fix  him  within  his  dominions.  Accordingly,  in  the  very  next  year, 
1794,  he  appointed  von  Turk  chancery  auditor,  and  two  years  later, 
chamberlain  and  chancery  councilor.  In  1800,  his  official  senior  von 
Kamptz,  afterward  well  known  as  Prussian  minister,  was  appointed  to 
a  public  station  in  Mecklenburg,  and  von  Turk  was  appointed  in  his 
stead  to  take  the  oversight  of  the  school  system,  with  his  judicial 
employments.  The  inquiries  which  his  new  place  suggested  to  him 
drew  his  attention  in  such  directions  that  he  became  gradually  estranged 
from  the  occupations  to  which  he  had  been  earlier  devoted. 

In  1804,  von  Turk  took  a  furlough  for  six  months,  visited  various 


156  VON   TtfRK. 

schools,  and  made  the  acquaintance  especially,  of  Olivier,  Tillich  and 
_Pohlmann,  then  distinguished  teachers  of  the  day.  In  the  same 
year,  he  remained  during  some  months,  at  Pestalozzi's  institution  at 
Miinchen-Bnchsee,  and  made  himself  acquainted  with  his  views,  and 
with  J.  Schmid's  system  for  geometry  and  mathematics.  He  pub- 
lished the  results  of  his  stay  with  Pestalozzi,  in  his  "  Letters  from 
Munchen-Buchsee"  (Leipzig,  1808);  one  of  the  most  practical  and 
useful  accounts  of  Pestalozzi's  method. 

After  his  return  to  Mecklenburg,  he  could  not  resist  his  impulse  to 
become  a  teacher.  He  gathered  together  a  troop  of  boys,  instructed 
them  two  hours  daily  and  made  teachers  acquainted  with  Pestalozzi's 
method.  During  his  educational  journeys  he  had  become  acquainted 
with  the  prince  of  Oldenburg,  and  at  the  end  of  1805,  he  was  ap- 
pointed to  a  lucrative  office  as  Justice  and  Consistory  Councilor  in 
Oldenburg,  with  an  annual  salary  of  fourteen  hundred  thalers,  (about 
$1050.) 

In  his  new  place  he  experienced  the  same  impulse  to  exertion  as  a 
teacher  and  educator.  Here  also  he  gathered  a  troop  of  boys  whom 
he  instructed  two  hours  a  day ;  and  he  received  into  his  house  a 
number  of  young  people,  and  gave  them  a  complete  education. 
These  operations  however  did  not  meet  the  approval  of  the  duke, 
who  intimated  a  wish  that  he  should  devote  himself  wholly  to  the 
duties  of  his  judicial  station,  and  refused  his  request  to  be  employed 
wholly  in  educational  matters.  This,  together  with  the  condition  of 
Oldenburg  (then  threatened  by  the  French,)  which  caused  him  much 
pecuniary  difficulty,  decided  him  to  resign  his  place  in  Oldenburg  and 
to  give  himself  up  entirely  to  the  business  of  education. 

In  1808,  with  some  pupils,  sons  of  a  Bremen  merchant,  he  went  to 
Pestalozzi  at  Yverdun,  and  for  some  time  instructed  in  that  institution. 
His  work,  "  Perception  by  the  Senses,"  (Die  Sinnlichen  Wahrnehmun- 
gen,}  is  a  fruit  of  his  labors  at  that  time  in  Pestalozzi's  institution. 
But  the  situation  of  affairs  there  was  unfavorable,  and  an  increasing 
difference  soon  grew  up  between  him  and  Pestalozzi.  This  decided 
von  Turk  to  leave  him  and  to  establish  an  educational  institution  of  his 
own  at  the  castle  of  Vevay  on  the  lake  of  Geneva.  Here  he  lived 
amongst  a  small  circle  of  children,  but  happily  progressing  in  knowl- 
edge under  his  love  and  zeal.  The  financial  results  did  not,  however, 
answer  his  expectations,  and  he  finally  in  1814  transferred  the  care 
jpf  the  school  to  Latour  de  Peilz,  at  his  castle  not  far  from  Vevay. 
Having  offered  his  services  to  the  Prussian  monarchy,  he  was  in  1815 
appointed  royal  and  school  councilor  at  Frankfort  on  the  Oder. 

The  course  of  instruction  which  he  gave  here  in  September  of  1816 


VON    TURK.  157 

upon  Pestalozzi's  method,  to  nearly  sixty  clergymen  and  teachers,  bad 
upon  many,  who  perhaps,  then  heard  of  Pestalozzi  for  the  first  time, 
an  influence  which  did  not  remain  fruitless.  His  efforts  to  improve 
the  instruction  in  arithmetic,  resulted  in  his  publication  of  his  "  Guide 
to  Instruction  in  Arithmetic"  which  is  yet  one  of  the  best  books  of 
its  class.  Its  fifth  edition  appeared  in  1830.  After  Natorp's  return 
to  his  native  country  in  1817,  von  Turk  was  appointed  School  Coun- 
cilor in  Potsdam,  in  which  station  he  labored  actively  for  sixteen 
years,  but  resigned  it  in  1833  to  devote  his  whole  time  and  powers  to 
the  benevolent  institutions  which  he  had  founded.  ^ 

These  are  (not  including  the  Swimming  Institution  at  Potsdam  and 
the  Association  for  the  improvement  of  silk-raising,)  the  following  : 

1.  The  Fund  for  jScfwol  Teachers'  Widows,  a.  at  Sorau,  b.  for  the 
district  of  Frankfort,  to  which  he  has  devoted  the  profits  of  his  work 
on  Arithmetic ;  and  c.  for  the  district  of  Potsdam. 

In  the  district  of  Frankfort  it  has  since  been  found  better  to  estab- 
lish, instead  of  one  widow's  society  for  the  whole  government,  to  es- 
tablish a  fund  in  each  synod ;  an  arrangement  which  has  in  most 
cases  been  entirely  successful.  In  the  case  of  the  fund  for  the  dis- 
trict of  Potsdam,  the  plainest  conclusions  of  experience  were  unfortu- 
nately so  much  overlooked,  that  after  a  few  years  the  allowances, 
which  are  raised  only  from  taxation,  were  materially  reduced ;  the 
consequence  of  which  has  lately  been  many  complaints. 

2.  The  Peace  Society  of  Potsdam,  founded  at  the  Reformation 
Festival  in  1818;  a  society  for   the  support  of  talented  but  poor 
young  men,  who  are  devoted  to  the  arts  or  sciences.     More  than  a 
hundred  such  have  been  supported  by  the  society.     Further  informa- 
tion about  this  society,  and  its  statutes,  may  be  found  in  Guts-Muth's 
"New  Library  of  Pedagogy." 

3.  The  Civil  Orphan  House — a  twin  child,  as  von  Turk  calls  it,  in 
which  about  thirty  orphan  boys  are  supported.     The  original  fund 
of  this  institution  was  raised  from  the  sale  of  a  collection  of  paintings 
belonging  to  von  Turk.     It  received  an  express  royal  sanction  in  a 
cabinet  order  dated   21st  February,  1825.     Up  to  1841,  thirty-six 
young  men  had  received  their  education  in  this  establishment. 

4.  The  fund  for  the  Education  and  Support  of  Orphan  Girls ;  an 
institution  which  originated  together  with  the  Civil  Orphan  House, 
and  which  is  managed  in  the  same  way.     Up  to  1841,  twenty  orphan 
girls  had  been  supported  by  it. 

5.  The   Orphan  House  at  Klein- Glienicke  near  Potsdam,  for  the 
orphan  children  of  artizans,  elementary  teachers  and  the  lower  grades 
of  public  officers. 


158  VON  TURK. 

It  may  not  b&  uninteresting  to  describe  the  precise  circumstances 
which  led  to  the  foundation  of  the  Klein-Glienicke  house.  Von  Turk 
heard  that  the  Crown  Prince  was  desirous  of  buying  the  hunting  seat 
known  as  Klein-Glienicke,  then  occupied  as  a  factory,  in  order  to  im- 
prove it  into  the  counterpart  of  Prince  Carl's  adjacent  beautiful  estate 
in  Glienicke.  Von  Turk  accordingly  quietly  bought  it,  and  offered  it 
to  the  Crown  Prince  at  the  cost  price,  but  received  the  answer  that 
he  would  not  be  able  to  make  use  of  the  offer.  Under  these  circum- 
stances von  Turk  applied  to  his  tried  friend,  Chief  President  von 
Bassewitz,  and  by  his  mediation  gained  permission  to  resign  his  hasty 
bargain  at  a  small  loss.  He,  however,  made  no  use  of  the  permission, 
but  told  his  friend  that  he  would  retain  the  property,  and  found  there 
another  orphan  house,  to  serve  as  a  sort  of  supplement  to  the  Civil 
Orphan  House,  which  was  intended  for  the  sons  of  persons  of  rather 
higher  rank.  In  fact  he  laid  his  plans  before  some  of  the  higher 
authorities,  but  the  means  which  he  could  show  for  the  establishment 
of  his  intended  institution  were  so  small  that  permission  was  refused 
him.  But  promises  of  support  gradually  came  in,  and  the  heads  of 
several  departments,  especially  Postmaster-general  von  Nagler  and 
the  Ministers  of  Justice  and  of  Finance  declaring  in  its  favor,  on  ac- 
count of  an  arrangement  to  establish  endowed  places  in  it  for  orphans 
of  their  departments,  the  institution  was  finally  set  in  operation. 
The  plans  for  it  were  remodeled  more  than  once,  and  more  than  one 
reckoning  of  the  funds  made ;  but  at  last,  an  association  being  formed 
which  purchased  the  real  estate  from  von  Turk,  and  there  were  thus 
secured  sufficient  means  to  open  the  establishment  for  those  at  least 
for  whom  endowed  places  had  been  promised.  Von  Turk  never 
lost  his  faith  in  ultimate  success,  though  the  funds  still  remained  de- 
ficient. It  happened  that  the  disposition  of  some  funds  from  a  war- 
indemnity,  not  accepted  by  those  entitled  to  them,  were  intrusted  to 
the  disposal  of  his  chief,  von  Bassewitz,  who,  with  the  consent  of  the 
families  of  these  proprietors,  appropriated  three  thousand  thalers 
(about  $2,250,)  from  this  source  to  the  new  Orphan  House.  Thus 
all  difficulties  were  obviated.  The  association  met,  completed  the 
purchase  of  Klein-Glienicke,  leased  it  to  von  Turk,  who  was  now  able 
to  proceed  with  the  completion  of  his  institution ;  and  had  the  pleas- 
ure of  seeing  it  flourish  under  his  eyes. 

In  a  letter  of  the  present  year.  (1846,)  relating  to  Klein-Glienicke, 
von    Turk   writes,    "  Here,    the   favorite    idea    of   my   teacher   and 
master,   Pestalozzi,  is  realized ;    education,    combined  with  agricul- 
ture and  gardening.     My  scholars  now  number  about  thirty.     I  have 
bout  two  hundred  Magdeburg  morgen,  (the  morgen  is  about  five- 


VON  TURK.  159 

thirteenths  of  an  acre,)  of  tilled  land,  from  sixteen  to  twenty  morgen 
of  garden  and  nurseries,  twenty-four  morgen  of  meadows,  and  a  dairy 
which  accommodates  twenty  cows  and  five  horses,  besides  sufficient 
room  for  the  silk-making,  except  that  the  latter  is  not  comfortably 
accommodated  in  winter.  I  feel  great  interest  in  encouraging  the 
establishment  of  similar  institutions.  What  has  been  possible  for  me, 
without  financial  resources  and  in  spite  of  the  many  prejudices  with 
which  I  have  had  to  contend,  (for  example,  I  have  been  a  govern- 
ment official ;  and  our  burghers  and  laboring  classes  do  not  love  the 
government  officials;  and  I  have  had  the  little  prefix  'von'  before 
my  name,)  must  be  possible  elsewhere  under  more  favorable  cir- 
cumstances." 

6.  Soup  Distribution  Institution  for  the  Old,  Sick,  Feeble,  and 
Poor,  and  Lying-in-  Women.  By  the  day-book  of  the  institution, 
96.908  portions  of  soup  were  distributed  in  1845.  This  was  received 
by  six  hundred  and  fifty-one  families,  including  four  hundred  and 
forty-one  married  persons,  four  hundred  and  thirty-eight  widows  and 
single  persons,  and  thirteen  hundred  and  forty  children ;  in  all  two 
thousand  two  hundred  and  nineteen  persons.  The  cost  of  one  portion 
of  soup  was  about  3%  pfennig,  (about  three-fifths  of  a  cent.) 

For  some  years  von  Turk  had  been  complaining  of  the  decay  of 
his  bodily  strength  and  of  his  memory,  when,  in  1845,  while  he  was 
in  Berlin,  a  dangerous  sickness  seized  him,  from  which  he  has  never 
entirely  recovered.  He  died  July  31,  1846.  His  wife,  two  children 
and  adopted  daughter  were  by  his  side,  and  his  last  hours  were 
peaceful  and  without  pain.  His  memory  will  long  endure. 

On  the  25th  of  the  April  before  his  departure  from  the  world  in 
which  he  had  labored  so  nobly  and  benevolently,  a  letter,  not  with- 
out interest  in  this  connection,  from  which  a  portion  follows.  To  the 
request  that  he  would  communicate  an  autobiography  for  Hergang's 
Encyclopedia,  he  replies  that  he  is  unable.  "  My  autobiography," 
he  says,  "  lies  ready  written  in  my  desk,  but  I  propose  to  publish  it 
for  the  benefit  of  the  Teachers'  orphans.  I  have  established  here  an 
orphan  house,  especially  intended  for  the  orphans  of  teachers ;  but 
their  numbers  and  necessities  in  the  province  of  Brandenburg,  for 
which  the  institution  is  founded,  are  so  great,  that  I  am  obliged  to 
refuse  many  applications ;  and  thus  I  am  contriving  the  means  for 
assisting  a  larger  number."  "  The  motives  which  have  impelled  me 
to  the  establishment  of  the  institutions  which  I  have  commenced, 
and  the  manner  and  means  by  which,  without  means  of  my  own,  and 
without  the  gift  of  eloquence,  I  have  been  able  to  accomplish  these 
designs,  will  be  related  in  my  biography,  that  others,  more  richly 
endowed,  may  learn  how  to  do  the  like."  "  I  am  in  my  seventy- 


160  VON   TURK. 

third  year,  on  the  borders  of  the  grave,  in  body  much  broken,  but 
peaceful  and  happy  in  mind,  and  in  all  my  efforts  for  the  improve- 
ment and  elevation  of  my  fellow-citizens,  having  enjoyed  a  success  far 
beyond  my  hopes."  "At  Easter  I  dismissed  from  the  Civil  Orphan 
House,  a  pupil,  son  of  a  country  clergyman,  who  is  now  studying 
theology  in  Berlin.  Several  of  my  scholars  are  already  laboring  as 
preachers,  judges,  physicians,  public  officials,  carpenters,  architects, 
teachers  and  officers."  How  happy  must  we  reckon  thee,  excellent 
man,  who,  while  still  living,  hast  experienced  such  intellectual  and 
heartfelt  pleasure !  Thy  works  follow  thee  into  eternity ;  their 
memory  shall  even  give  thee  ever  increasing  pleasure,  and  many, 
happy  through  thy  means,  shall  bring  thee  thanks. 

Noble  and  venerable  as  von  Turk  was,  he  was  yet  attacked  by  the 
arrows  of  wicked  calumny.  On  this  point  we  shall  only  relate  the 
following : 

Bishop  Eylert  relates  in  his  character  of  Frederic  William  III., 
(vol.  2,)  that  von  Turk  was  suspected  by  that  monarch  of  being  an 
unprincipled  demagogue.  Von  Turk  was  living  amongst  the  com- 
mon people,  as  his  inborn  and  profound  preference  made  it  happiest 
for  him  to  live,  and  laboring  for  their  good  by  his  writings  and  in  his 
official  station,  according  to  his  irresistible  vocation ;  and  some  per- 
sons had  concluded  that  to  be  doing  this  without  apparent  interested 
motives,  and  without  remuneration  for  the  necessary  sacrifices  of  labor, 
means  and  time,  was  enough  to  stamp  von  Turk  a  dangerous  dema- 
gogue. Bishop  Eylert,  who  was  a  friend  of  von  Turk,  undertook  to 
remove  this  impression  from  the  king's  mind.  Having  argued  the 
case,  the  king  said,  "  I  am  glad  to  have  my  former  opinion  corrected, 
and  to  be  able  to  entertain  a  good  opinion  of  one  who  has  certainly 
been  accused  to  me."  At  the  next  festival  of  the  order,  von  Turk 
received  the  red  order  of  nobility ;  the  king  immediately  interested 
himself  in  the  Civil  Orphan  House  at  Potsdam,  and  for  the  institution 
at  Klein-Glienicke,  where  he  endowed  additional  scholarships,  made 
presents  to  the  orphans,  and  continued  to  von  Turk,  at  his  resigna- 
tion of  his  place  as  royal  and  school  councilor,  in  order  to  devote 
himself  wholly  to  his  institutions,  the  whole  amount  of  his  salary  as 
pension. 


HERMANN  OflSI. 


HERMANN  KRUSI  was  born  March  12th,  1775,  at  Gais,  in  the 
canton  of  Appenzell.  Of  his  parents  he  writes  in  his  "Recollections," 
"  they  are  entitled  to  the  praise  of  having  passed  through  life  in  quiet 
goodness  and  fear  of  God,  and  were  careful  to  give  their  children  a 
good  education."  After  the  good  old  fashion,  they  often  read  in 
the  family  Bible,  and  entered  in  its  blank  leaves  the  birth  of  each 
of  their  children,  together  with  some  pious  prayer  or  saying.  They 
also  amused  themselves,  especially  on  Sundays,  by  singing  from  the 
then  popular  "  Bachofen."  Of  learning  they  could  of  course  give 
their  poor  children  but  very  little,  and  what  they  afterward  acquired 
in  school  was  but  little  more.  His  earliest  recollections  was  of  a  fire 
which  laid  the  village  of  Gais  in  ashes ;  of  which  he  thus  speaks  :— 

It  is  natural  that  the  first  recollections  of  the  mind  should  be  of  uncommon  and 
striking  events,  such  as  make  a  profound  impression  upon  one's  whole  being,  and 
leave  an  indelible  mark  upon  the  character.  This  was  the  case  with  myself. 

On  the  7th  of  September,  1780,  a  violent  south  wind  blew ;  bad  weather  for  the 
weavers,  but  good  for  drying  turf.  "  I  will  go  to  the  turf-ground  and  turn  and 
dry  the  turf,"  said  my  father ;  "there  is  nothing  to  do  in  the  weaving-room." 
He  took  me  with  him  that  day  for  the  first  time  to  the  turf-pits,  which  were  a 
good  four  miles  from  the  village.  At  half  past  eleven  he  heard  the  sound  of  a 
bell.  "  It  can  not  be  striking  noon  yet,"  he  thought,  looking  at  his  work — u  Ah 
God,"  he  cried,  "  it  is  the  alarm  bell;"  and  we  heard  the  cry  of  fire  !  fire  !  from 
all  sides. 

"With  this  fragment,  unfortunately,  ends  the  account.  The  fact  of 
the  fire  is  well  known.  Notwithstanding  his  youth,  our  subject 
remembered  many  occurrences  of  that  occasion ;  especially  the 
next  Sunday's  service  under  the  open  sky.  There  was  very  general 
emotion,  which,  at  the  rather  remarkable  choice  of  the  hymn,  "As 
by  the  streams  of  Babylon  we  sat,"  &c.,  broke  out  into  such  loud 
lamentations  that  the  singing  could  not  proceed.  These  recollections 
may  well  have  been  terrible  to  the  boy,  although  his  father's  house 
W.MS  spared  by  the  flames.  But  a  severer  stroke  came  upon  him, 
when  his  father,  in  the  prime  of  his  manhood,  was  suddenly  snatched 
away  by  death  from  his  numerous  family.  He  had  always  supported 
his  own  household,  and  had  taught  them  according  to  his  ability ; 
and  it  is  difficult  to  tell  what  would  have  become  of  them,  had  not 
Kriisi,  then  in  his  fourteenth  year,  undertaken  to  perform  his  father's 


162  HERMANN  KRU'SI. 

laborious  duties  of  village  errand-man  and  weaver;  a  service  for 
\vhich  the  consciousness  that  he  was  the  trust  and  stay  of  an  orphaned 
family  gave  him  strength.  Upon  his  solitary  errands  to  St.  Gall,  and 
elsewhere,  he  used  to  recite  to  himself  the  instruction  and  counsel 
which  his  father  had  given. 

Kriisi  might  have  passed  his  whole  life  in  his  father's  monotonous 
calling,  had  not  a  benign  Providence  given  him  an  indication  which 
had  the  most  important  consequences  for  his  entire  future.  We  shall 
permit  Kriisi  himself  to  tell  the  story,  in  the  words  of  his  own  "  Rec- 
ollections," pp.  2-4,  which  give  other  and  deeper  views  into  his  mind 
at  that  time  :  — 

At  the  highest  point  of  the  pass,  where  the  road  turns  away  from  toward  Tro- 
gen,  my  life  also  took  another  direction.  While  earning  my  living  as  day  laborei 
and  errand-man,  I  was  carrying,  one  cold  day  in  1793,  to  the  establishment  of 
Zellweger,  with  which  I  afterward  came  into  very  different  relations,  a  great  bun- 
dle of  yarn  from  the  mountain.  As  1  stopped  to  rest,  all  dripping  with  sweat,  at 
the  very  summit,  a  relative  met  me,  who  was  then  treasurer  of  the  town, 
one  Herr  Gruber.  After  the  usual  greetings,  the  following  conversation  ensued, 
which  I  yet  remember  as  the  turning  point  of  my  life. 

Gruber, — "  It  is  warm." 

Myself. — "  Very  warm." 

Gruber. — "  Now  that  schoolmaster  Horler  is  going  away  from  Gais,  you  have 
a  chance  to  earn  your  bread  a  little  more  easily.  Have  you  no  desire  to  offer 
yourself  for  his  place  !  " 

Myself. — "  Wishing  will  not  help  me  much.  A  schoolmaster  must  have 
knowledge  :  and  I  have  none." 

Gruber. — "  WThat  a  schoolmaster  among  us  needs  to  know,  you  at  your  age  can 
very  soon  learn." 

Myself. — u  But  how,  and  where  ?     I  see  no  possibility  of  it." 

Gruber. — "  If  you  wish  it,  the  means  will  be  easily  found.  Consider  the  mat- 
tor  and  decide  upon  it." 

He  left  me.  I  now  had  abundance  of  matter  for  reflection.  But  no  ray  of 
light  came  into  my  mind,  although  the  natural  sunlight  surrounded  my  body  with 
brightness  and  warmth.  I  scarcely  felt  my  load  as  I  proceeded  along  the  ascents 
and  steeps  of  the  road.  Whatever  has  fallen  to  my  lot  since  that  moment,  I  look 
upon  as  the  fruit  of  this  conversation. 

Since  my  leaving  the  day  school,  where  I  had  learned  and  practiced  only  read- 
ing, learning  by  rote,  and  mechanical  copying,  and  while  I  was  growing  up  to 
adult  age,  I  had  so  far  forgotten  to  write,  that  I  no  longer  knew  how  to  make  all 
the  capital  letters  ;  my  friend  Sonderegger  therefore  procured  me  a  copy  from  a 
teacher  in  Altstatten,  well  known  as  a  writing-master.  This  single  copy  I  wrote 
over  as  often  as  a  hundred  times,  for  the  sake  of  improving  my  handwriting. 
I  had  no  other  special  preparation  for  the  profession ;  but,  notwithstanding,  I  ven- 
ture':!, when  the  notice  was  given  from  the  pulpit,  to  offer  myself  as  a  candidate  for 
the  place,  with  but  small  hopes  of  obtaining  it,  but  consoling  myself  with  the 
thought  that  at  least  I  should  come  off  without  shame. 

The  day  of  examination  came.  An  elder  fellow-candidate  was  first  called  be- 
fbr-e  the  committee.  To  read  a  chapter  in  the  New  Testament  and  to  write  a  few 
lines,  occupied  him  a  full  quarter  of  an  hour.  My  turn  now  came.  The  genea- 
logical register,  from  Adam  to  Abraham,  from  the  first  book  of  Chronicles,  was 
given  me  to  read.  After  this,  chaiz'man  Schlapfer  gave  me  an  uncut  quill,  with 
the  direction  to  write  a  few  lines.  "  What  shall  I  write  1  "  I  said.  "  Write  the 
Lord's  Prayer,  or  whatever  you  like,"  was  the  answer.  As  I  had  no  knowledge 
of  composition  or  spelling,  it  may  be  imagined  how  my  writing  looked.  However, 
I  was  told  to  retire.  After  a  short  consultation,  I  was,  to  my  wonder  and  pride, 
recalled  into  the  room.  Here  chairman  Schlapfer  informed  me  that  the  whole 


HERMANN  KRUSI.  jgg 

committee  were  of  opinion  that  both  candidates  knew  little  •,  that  the  other  was 
best  in  reading,  and  I  in  writing. 

The  other,  however,  being  over  forty  years  old,  and  I  only  eighteen,  they  had 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  I  should  learn  what  was  necessary  sooner  than  he, 
and  as  moreover  my  dwelling-house  (the  commune  had  then  no  school-house  of 
their  own)  was  better  adapted  for  a  school-house  than  his,  I  should  receive  the 
appointment.  I  was  dismissed  with  friendly  advice,  and  encouraging  hopes  of  in- 
creased pay,  if  my  exertions  should  be  satisfactory. 

Much  attention  was  excited  by  the  fact  that  my  fellow-candidate,  eight  days 
afterward,  took  a  situation  as  policeman,  in  which  he  received  three  gulden  a 
week,  while  the  schoolmaster,  who  was  obliged  to  furnish  his  own  school-room, 
had  to  satisfy  himself  with  two  and  a  half. 

Kriisi,  becoming  schoolmaster  at  the  age  of  scarcely  eighteen,  was 
destined  to  bear  a  responsibility  almost  greater  than  that  which  he 
had  so  lately  laid  down.  This  will  easily  be  understood  when  it  is 
known  that,  with  his  small  knowledge  of  school  matters,  he  had  to 
manage  and  teach  more  than  one  hundred  scholars,  of  various  ages 
and  both  sexes,  in  the  small  school-room.  In  this  situation  many 
would  have  labored  only  for  their  money,  as  is  unfortunately  the  case 
at  this  day  even  with  better  instructed  teachers ;  but  Kriisi's  conduct 
in  this  respect  may  serve  as  a  model.  As  soon  as  he  had  adopted 
this  profession,  it  was  his  most  earnest  effort  to  live  worthily  of  it,  and 
to  fit  himself  for  it  in  the  best  possible  way ;  a  work  in  which  pastor 
Schiess,  his  parish  minister,  materially  assisted  him,  both  with  advice 
and  help.  Within  a  few  years  his  school  had  the  reputation  of  being 
the  best  in  the  canton ;  and  he  had  the  pleasure  on  Easter  Monday 
of  seeing  his  scholars  take  the  six  highest  numbers  in  writing — a 
study  on  which  the  utmost  value  is  placed.  Kriisi  had  been  laboring 
in  his  vocation  now  for  six  years,  with  zeal  and  faithfulness,  when 
Providence  destined  him  for  another  field  of  labor  which  he  could 
not  have  foreseen,  and  which  places  the  modest  man  in  a  situation  to 
exert  a  wide  influence  upon  the  whole  school  system  of  our  native 
land.  The  storm  of  the  French  Revolution  broke  out.  In  the  year 
1799,  foreign  armies  swept  across  the  plains  of  our  fatherland,  and 
encountered  each  other  in  murderous  conflict ;  even  the  mountains 
and  high  alpine  valleys  did  not  escape  from  the  bloody  game. 
Poverty,  hunger,  and  lack  of  occupation  were  especially  severe  in  the 
eastern  part  of  Switzerland ;  many  parents  could  not  maintain  their 
children.  Sympathy  awoke  in  the  hearts  of  the  nobler  men  in  the 
less  severely  pressed  portions  of  the  country ;  and  from  many  sides 
there  flowed  in  liberal  gifts,  often  accompanied  with  the  offer  to  re- 
ceive and  bring  up  needy  children.  Such  an  invitation  came  to  pas- 
tor Steinmuller  from  his  friend  Fischer,  in  Burgdorf,  who  was  then 
intrusted  with  the  reorganization  of  the  Swiss  schools.  The  wish 
was  at  the  same  time  expressed  that  he  would  also  send  a  teacher  of 


164  HERMANN   KRUSI. 

the  requisite  capacity  and  character  for  receiving  a  training  as  teacher 
and  educator,  and  for  undertaking  the  care  of  the  children  then  in 
Burgdorf  with  certain  benevolent  families.  Upon  the  communication 
of  this  invitation  to  Kriisi,  he  made  no  delay ;  an  inner  voice  urged 
him  not  to  let  pass  this  opportunity  for  obtaining  a  further  education. 
Twenty-six  children  of  both  sexes  assembled  for  the  expedition. 
Kriisi,  as  leader  of  the  troop,  was  provided  with  twenty-four  thalers 
for  the  journey,  thirty  leagues.  Pastor  Steinmuller,  and  bailiff  Heim, 
of  the  district  gave  him  a  testimonial,  which  we  may  insert  here  as  a 
noteworthy  trait  of  the  condition  of  the  times: — 

FREEDOM  !  EQUALITY  !  To  all  municipal  authorities  to  whom  these  presents  shall 
come.  Citizen  schoolmaster  Hermann  Kriisi  is  traveling  hence  from  the  canton 
Santis  to  the  canton  Bern,  with  twenty-six  poor  children,  whom  he  is  taking  to 
Burgdorf,  where  sympathizing  benefactors  will  support  and  care  for  them  for  a 
time.  It  is  my  earnest  and  hopeful  request  to  all  municipalities,  and  especially  to 
their  citizen  presidents,  that  they  will  kindly  afford  all  needful  help  to  the  above 
named  children  and  to  their  leader,  sent  forward  by  my  means  as  above ;  that 
they  will,  as  far  as  possible,  kindly  provide  for  them  rest  and  refreshment  at  noon, 
and  lodging  at  night,  without  pay.  For  such  benevolent  assistance,  may  the  Lord 
bless  you. 

Thus  asks  and  wishes 

Gais,  January  20,  1800.  JOH.  RUD.  STEINMULLER,  Pastor. 

I  join  in  the  above  request  to  all  citizen  presidents  and  citizen  members  of 
municipalities  of  all  communes  and  districts,  to  which  these  needy  children  shall 
come,  on  their  way  hence  to  Burgdorf ;  and  arn  fully  convinced  that  all  benevolent 
persons  will,  without  further  recommendation,  assist  the  poor  caravan  to  reach  its 
destination  as  easily  and  successfully  as  possible. 

The  provincial  under-bailiff  of  the  circle  of  Teufen, 

SAMUEL  HEIM. 

Of  the  journey  itself  we  need  only  remark  briefly  that  Kriisi,  with 
his  troop,  was  everywhere  received  in  a  friendly  manner ;  and  in 
inany  places  they  were  entertained  gratis,  and  even  received  gifts  of 
money.  His  "Recollections"  give  an  account  of  this.  It  deserves  to 
be  mentioned,  as  remarkable  enough  to  remind  us  of  the  widow's 
cruse  of  oil,  that,  at  Kriisi's  arrival  at  Burgdorf,  he  was  in  possession 
not  only  of  the  twenty-four  thalers  with  which  he  had  set  out,  but  of 
fifteen  gulden  besides ;  of  which  he  retained  the  latter,  but  sent  the 
former  back  to  the  authorities  of  Gais. 

From  Fischer,  at  Burgdorf,  Kriisi  received  a  most  friendly  welcome, 
and  commenced  his  school.  The  former,  however,  soon  after  died, 
and  Kriisi  would  have  been  left  quite  alone  again,  had  not  Providence 
pointed  out  to  him  a  new  path,  by  means  of  the  appearance  of  a  man 
whom  he  followed  with  entire  confidence. 

This  was  Pestalozzi,  whose  labors  at  his  estate  of  Neuhof,  and  in 
Stanz,  are  among  the  noblest  facts  of  history.  It  was  when  already 
of  adult  age  that  Pestalozzi,  with  warm  enthusiasm  and  profound 


HERMANN    KRUSI.  165 

love,  had  conceived  the  idea  of  becoming  an  educator  and  teacher  of 
the  poorer  classes,  then  deep]}'  degraded  both  in  intellect  and  morals ; 
and  giving  to  education  in  general  a  more  natural  direction.  After 
Fischer's  death,  he  therefore  invited  Kriisi  to  form  a  connection  with 
himself,  and  with  him  to  conduct  the  school  which  he  had  established 
in  the  castle  of  the  place.  This  school,  which  Pestalozzi  had  at  first 
commenced  only  with  little  children,  was  soon  changed  into  an  edu- 
cational institution  of  a  higher  grade,  which,  by  means  of  the  entirely 
new  direction  of  its  operations,  met  with  great  success.  Joy  and 
pride  must  have  filled  Pestalozzi's  breast,  as  he  soon  saw,  one  after 
another,  young  and  talented  men — Tobler  from  Wolfhalden,  previous- 
ly a  tutor  in  Basle,  Buss  from  Tubingen,  Niederer  from  Lutzenberg, 
previously  a  pastor  in  Sennwald — full  of  enthusiasm,  leaving  each  his 
sphere  of  labor  and  resorting  to  him  as  trustful  disciples  to  a  master 
who  yet  could  reward  them  with  no  earthly  treasure  except  a  treas- 
ure of  rich  experience  and  of  deep  knowledge  of  the  human  heart. 

The  assemblage  of  these  three  Appenzellers  will  remain  remarkable 
for  all  time.  Each  of  them  developed  his  own  side  of  the  Pestaloz- 
zian  idea ;  and  they  were  for  a  long  time  the  ornament  and  strength 
of  the  institution  ;  and,  after  subsequent  successful  labors  in  independ- 
ent spheres  of  occupation,  they  all  died  within  the  same  year.  Krii- 
si's  letters  during  this  period  to  his  early  friend  Kern,  who  is  yet  alive, 
and  who  lived  in  close  personal  relations  with  him  for  nearly  forty 
years,  are  also  of  value  to  the  student  of  human  nature.  What  he 
wrote  of  Tobler,  "he  possesses  my  entire  respect  and  love,  for  I  recog- 
nize in  him  uncommon  talent  as  a  teacher,  and  goodness  of  heart," 
proved  entirely  true.  Tobler  had  with  enthusiasm  taken  up  particu- 
larly the  idea  of  Pestalozzi's  "Lienhard  and  Gertrude;"  that  of  re- 
placing mothers  in  the  position  originally  designed  for  them,  of  educa- 
tors and  instructors  for  early  childhood.  Seldom  has  any  man  labored 
with  as  benevolent  and  unostentatious  a  desire  for  the  good  of  his  fel- 
low-men as  he,  although  he  was  often  rewarded  by  misunderstanding 
and  ingratitude. 

Niederer,  also,  besides  immoveable  integrity  and  warm  feelings, 
possessed  a  far-seeing  keenness  of  understanding,  which  had  already 
appeared  in  his  correspondence  with  Tobler,  and  which  at  a  later 
period  was  displayed  in  the  development  of  the  method  with  so  much 
power  and  breadth  that  even  Pestalozzi  himself  had  sometimes  to 
yield  to  the  clearness  and  thoroughness  of  his  views. 

It  is  astonishing  to  see  with  what  uniformity  these  men,  assembled 
from  different  directions,  followed  their  new  path.  This  was  truly  a 
power  from  on  high.  What  else  could  have  enabled  the  former 


[QQ  HERMANN    KRUSI. 

errand-boy  and  village  schoolmaster,  Kriisi,  to  say  in  his  letters  to  Lis 
friend,  even  before  Tobler  and.  Niederer  came  to  Burgdorf, — 

"In  short,  the  enterprise  advances.  The  seed  of  a  better  education, 
one  more  adapted  to  human  nature,  is  already  sown.  It  will  bear 
fruit  which  as  yet  no  man,  not  even  its  discoverer,  the  noble  Pestalozzi 
himself,  is  expecting." 

The  self-denying  spirit  and  lofty,  views  with  which  Pestalozzi's 
assistants  at  this  early  period  were  imbued,  is  powerfully  shown  by 
the  fact  that  Kriisi  and  Buss,  being  allowed  a  salary  of  about  $125 
a  year  each  from  the  Helvetic  government,  appropriated  the  whole  to 
the  support  of  the  institution,  receiving  from  it  only  board  and 
lodging. 

We  will  here  introduce  Festalozzi's  own  account  of  Kriisi's  previous 
labors.  It  affords  a  valuable  view  of  his  character,  and  gifts  as  a 
teacher,  as  well  as  hints  of  the  general  methods  of  teaching  in  those 
days,  and  of  the  power  with  which  Pestalozzi's  ideas,  even  in  their 
then  undigested  and  obscure  condition,  seized  upon  the  minds  of 
ignorant  but  earnest  and  unprejudiced  men  : — 

Kriisi,  the  first  of  the  three,  whose  acquaintance  I  made,  had  past  his  youth  in 
a  different  kind  of  employment,  whence  he  had  acquired  that  variety  of  practical 
abilities,  which,  in  the  lower  stations  of  life,  so  frequently  gives  the  first  impulse 
to  a  higher  degree  of  development,  and  by  which  men,  who  have  been  in  this 
school  from  their  earliest  childhood,  are  enabled  to  become  more  generally  and 
extensively  useful. 

In  his  twelfth  and  thirteenth  years,  his  father,  who  carried  on  a  petty  traffic, 
used  to  send  him,  with  a  small  capital,  amounting  to  about  six  or  eight  pounds 
sterling,  for  the  purchase  of  different  kinds  of  merchandise,  to  a  distance  often  to 
twelve  miles  ;  to  this  employment  he  joined  the  trade  of  a  sort  of  public  messen- 
ger, carrying  letters  and  executing  various  orders  for  the  people  of  his  village. 
When  he  grew  older,  he  filled  up  his  leisure  days  by  weaving,  or  other  daily 
labor.  At  the  age  of  eighteen,  he  undertook  the  office  of  village  school  in  aster  at 
Gais,*  his  native  place,  without  any  kind  of  preparation.  He  says  himself  that  he 
did  not  know  the  signs  of  punctuation,  even  by  name ;  ulterior  knowledge  was 
out  of  the  question,  because  he  never  had  any  other  instruction  than  that  of  a 
common  village  school,  which  was  entirely  confined  to  reading,  writing  copies, 
and  learning  by  rote  the  catechism,  &c. ;  but  he  was  fond  of  children,  and  he  en- 
tertained the  hope  that,  by  means  of  this  post,  he  should  be  enabled  to  gain  for 
himself  that  knowledge  and  education,  the  want  of  which  he  had  felt  very  op- 
pressively, even  in  his  expeditions  as  village  messenger ;  for,  being  commissioned 
to  buy  a  variety  of  articles,  of  artificial  preparation,  and  of  strange  names  which 
lie  had  never  heard  in  his  life  before,  such  as  ammoniac,  borax,  and  so  on  ;  and 
being  at  the  same  time  placed  in  a  responsible  situation,  in  which  he  had  to  re- 
member every,  even  the  most  trifling  order,  and  to  account  for  every  farthing;  he 
could  not  but  be  struck  with  the  idea,  what  an  advantage  it  would  be,  if  every 
child  could,  by  school  instruction,  be  brought  to  that  degree  of  ability  in  reading, 
writing,  ciphering,  in  all  sorts  of  mental  exercises,  and  in  the  art  of  speaking  itself, 
which  he  felt  he  ought  to  be  possessed  of,  even  for  the  discharge  of  his  miserable 
post  as  village  messenger. 

Even  so  soon  as  the  first  week,  the  number  of  his  scholars  exceeded  one 
hundred.  But  he  was  by  no  means  competent  to  the  task  he  had  undertaken, 

*  A  villaire,  or,  rather,  a  cluster  of  hamlets  on  the  highest  and  most  airy  part  of  the  canton 
Appenzell,  celebrated  as  a  place  of  resort  for  persons  of  consumptive  habits,  on  account  of  its 
excellent  milk,  of  which,  however,  the  patients  take  only  the  whey. 


HERMANN  KRUSI.  167 

for  he  knew  not  how  to  give  proper  employment  to  all  these  children,  what  to 
teach  them,  or  by  what  means  to  keep  them  in  order.  All  the  notions  he  had  hith- 
erto acquired  about  keeping  school  were  confined  to  the  "  setting  "  of  spelling  and 
reading  lessons,  to  be  u  got  by  heart ;"  to  the  "  saying  "  of  the  same  lessons  by 
turns,  followed  by  the  chastisement  of  the  rod  if  the  task  was  not  properly  got. 
From  the  experience  of  his  own  boyhood,  however,  he  knew  likewise  that,  with 
this  mode  of  "  keeping  school,"  the  greater  part  of  the  children  are  idling  away 
most  of  the  school-hours,  and  by  idleness  are  led  to  a  variety  of  follies  and  im- 
moralities ;  that  in  this  manner  the  time  which  is  most  available  for  education  is 
allowed  to  pass  by  without  any  benefit  to  them,  and  that  the  few  advantages  which 
they  may  derive  from  their  instruction  are  not  even  sufficient  to  counterbalance 
the  ill  effects  which  must  necessarily  result  from  such  "  school-keeping." 

Pastor  Schiess,  the  minister  of  the  place,  who  was  very  actively  combating  the 
old  routine,  assisted  him  in  his  school,  during  the  first  eight  weeks.  From  the 
very  beginning  they  divided  the  scholars  into  three  classes.  With  this  division, 
and  the  use  of  some  spelling  and  reading-books  on  an  improved  plan,  which  had 
recently  been  introduced  in  the  school,  they  succeeded  in  making  a  number  of 
children  spell  and  read  together,  and  thus  keeping  them  generally  occupied  to  a 
far  greater  extent  than  had  been  possible  before. 

The  new  reading-book,  that  had  been  introduced  by  the  minister,  contained 
religious  truths  in  short  paragraphs,  and  in  biblical  sentences ;  various  facts  of 
physical  science,  natural  history,  and  geography,  were  concisely  stated,  and  in- 
formation was  given  on  interesting  points  of  the  political  constitution  of  the  country. 
Kriisi  observed  his  pastor,  when  he  read  it  with  the  children,  putting  some 
questions  at  the  end  of  each  paragraph,  in  order  to  see  whether  they  actually  un- 
derstood what  they  had  read.  Kriisi  tried  to  do  the  same  thing,  and  succeeded 
in  making  most  of  the  scholars  perfectly  familiar  with  the  contents  of  the  reading- 
book.  But  this  was  only  because,  like  good  old  Huebuer,*  he  adapted  his 
questions  to  the  answers  which  were  to  be  found,  ready  made,  in  the  book,  and 
because  he  neither  demanded  nor  expected  any  other  answer,  except  literally 
those  which  the  book  had  put  into  the  children's  mouths,  long  before  any  question 
was  devised  to  elicit  them.  The  true  reason  of  his  success  was,  that  there  was  a 
complete  absence  of  all  mental  exercise  in  this  his  system  of  catechisation.  Tt  is, 
however,  to  be  observed,  that  that  mode  of  instruction  which  originally  was 
termed  catechisation,  is,  no  more  than  Kriisi's  system  of  questioning,  an  exercise 
of  the  mind  ;  it  is  a  mere  analysis  of  words,  relieving  the  child,  as  far  as  words 
are  concerned,  from  the  confusion  of  a  whole  sentence,  the  different  parts  of  which 
are  presented  to  the  mind  separately  and  distinctly ;  it  can,  therefore,  only  have 
merit  when  used  as  a  preparatory  step  to  the  further  exercise  of  clearing  up  the 
ideas  represented  by  those  words.  This  latter  exercise,  commonly  termed  So- 
cratic  instruction,  has  only  of  late  been  mixed  up  with  the  business  of  catechising, 
which  was  originally  confined  to  religious  subjects  exclusively. 

The  children  thus  catechised  by  Kriisi  were  held  up  by  the  minister  as  ex- 
amples to  his  elder  catechumens.  Afterward  it  was  required  of  Kriisi,  that  ho 
should,  after  the  fashion  of  those  times,  combine  this  narrow  analysis  of  words, 
called  catechising,  with  the  Socratic  manner,  which  takes  up  the  subject  in  a 
higher  sense.  But  an  uncultivated  and  superficial  mind  does  not  dive  into  those 
depths  from  which  Socrates  derived  spirit  and  truth ;  and  it  was,  therefore,  quite 
natural  that,  in  his  new  system  of  questioning,  Kriisi  should  not  succeed.  He 
ha  1  no  internal  basis  for  his  questions,  nor  had  the  children  any  for  their  answers. 
They  had  no  language  for  things  which  they  knew  not,  and  no  books  which 
furnished  them  with  a  well-framed  answer  to  every  question,  whether  they 
understood  it  or  not. 

Kriisi,  however,  had  not  then  that  clear  insight  into  the  nature  of  those  two 
methods  which  might  have  enabled  him  to  apprehend  their  difference,  lie  had 
not  yet  learned  that  mere  catechising,  especially  if  it  runs  upon  abstract  terms, 
leads  to  no  more  than  the  art  of  separating  words  and  handling  analytical  form?  ; 
but  that,  in  itself,  it  is  nothing  but  a  parrot-like  repetition  of  sounds  without  un 
derstanding:  nor  was  he  aware  that  Socratic  questions  are  not  to  be  addressed 

*  "Good  old  Huebner  "  is  the  author  of  a  Scripture  history  in  German,  to  which  are  at- 
tached sets  of  "useful  questions  ;uid  answers,"  such  as  our  readers  may  find  in  many  a 
"good  new"  manual  of  our  •*  enlightened  and  improved  systems." 


jgg  HERMANN  KRUSI. 

to  children,  such  as  his  pupils  at  Gais,  who  were  equally  destitute  of  the  internal 
fund,  that  is,  of  real  knowledge, — and  of  the  external  means,  that  is,  of  language 
wherein  to  convey  that  knowledge.  The  failure  of  his  attempt  rendered  him 
unjust  to  himself;  he  thought  the  fault  lay  entirely  with  himself,  imagining  that 
every  good  schoolmaster  must  be  able,  by  his  questions,  to  elicit  from  the  children 
correct  and  precise  answers  on  all  manner  of  moral  and  religious  subjects. 

We  have  already  noticed  the  circumstances  which  brought  Kriisi 
to  Burgdorf. 

The  more  he  labored  with  Fischer  the  higher  seemed  to  him  the  mountain 
which  lay  in  his  way,  and  the  less  did  he  feel  in  himself  of  that  power  which  he 
saw  would  be  necessary  to  reach  its  summit.  However,  during  the  very  first 
days  after  his  arrival,  Kriisi  was  present  at  some  of  the  conversations  I  had  with 
Fischer  on  the  subject  of  popular  education,  when  I  expressed  my  decided  disap- 
probation of  the  Socratic  manner  of  our  young  candidates,  adding,  that  it  was  not 
my  wish  to  bring  children  to  a  premature  judgment,  on  any  subject,  but  that  my 
endeavor  was  rather  to  check  their  judgment,  until  the  children  should  have  an 
opportunity  of  viewing  the  subject  from  all  sides,  and  under  a  variety  of  circum- 
stances, and  until  they  should  be  perfectly  familiar  with  the  words  expressive  of 
its  nature  and  its  qualities.  Kriisi  was  struck  with  these  remarks  ;  he  felt  it  was 
there  that  his  own  deficiency  lay ;  he  found  that  he  himself  stood  in  need  of  that 
same  elementary  instruction  which  I  designed  for  my  children. 

Fischer  exerted  himself  with  all  his  power  to  introduce  Kriisi  to  different  de- 
partments of  science,  that  he  might  be  able  afterward  to  teach  them.  But  Kriisi 
felt  every  day  more  that  the  way  of  books  was  not  the  one  for  him  to  make 
progress  in,  because  on  every  subject  he  was  destitute  of  that  preliminary 
knowledge  of  things  and  their  names,  which,  to  a  greater  or  lesser  extent,  books 
presuppose.  On  the  other  hand,  he  witnessed  the  effect  which  I  produced  upon 
my  children,  by  leading  them  back  to  the  first  elements  of  human  knowledge,  and 
by  dwelling  on  these  elements  with  unwearied  patience ;  and  the  result  of  his 
observation  tended  to  confirm  him  in  the  notions  he  had  formed  concerning  the 
causes  of  his  own  inability.  Thus  by  degrees  his  whole  view  of  instruction  under- 
went a  great  change,  and  he  began  in  his  own  mind  to  place  it  on  a  different 
foundation.  He  now  perceived  clearly  the  tendency  of  my  experiments,  which 
was  to  develop  the  internal  power  of  the  child  rather  than  to  produce  those 
results  which,  nevertheless,  were  produced  as  the  necessary  consequences  of  my 
proceedings ;  and  seeing  the  application  of  this  principle  to  the  development  of 
different  faculties  by  different  branches  of  instruction,  he  came  to  the  conviction 
that  the  effect  of  my  method  was  to  lay  in  the  child  a  foundation  of  knowledge 
and  further  progress,  such  as  it  would  be  impossible  to  obtain  by  any  other. 

Fischer's  death  accelerated  the  union  between  Pestalozzi  and  Kriisi, 
wliich  had  been  contemplated  by  the  latter  almost  from  the  first 
moment  of  bis  acquaintance  with  his  paternal  friend.  The  following 
account  of  the  view  which  he  took  of  Pestalozzi's  plan,  after  he  had 
for  some  time  enjoyed  the  advantage  of  practical  co-operation  with 
him,  is,  notwithstanding  its  great  deficiencies,  an  interesting  testimony 
in  favor  of  the  experiment,  in  the  course  of  which  these  ideas  urged 
themselves  upon  an  evidently  unprejudiced  mind. 

1.  A  well-arranged  nomenclature,  indelibly  impressed  upon  the  mind,  is  to 
serve  as  a  general  foundation,  on  the  ground  of  which  both  teacher  and  children 
may,  subsequently,  develop  clear  and  distinct  ideas  on  every  branch  of  knowledge, 
by  a  gradual  but  well-secured  progress  from  the  first  elements. 

2.  Exercises  concerning  lines,  angles,  curves,  &c.,  (such  as  I  began  to  introduce 
at  that  time.)  are  calculated  to  give  children  such  a  distinctness  and  precision  in 
the  perception  of  objects,  as  will  enable  them  to  form  a  clear  notion  of  whatever 
tails  within  the  sphere  of  their  observation. 

3.  The  mode  of  beginning  arithmetical  instruction  by  means  of  real  objects,  or 
at  least  strokes  and  clots,  representing  the  different  numbers,  gives  great  precision 

I 


HERMANN  KRUSI.  IQQ 

and  certainty  in  the  elements,  and  secures  the  further  progress  of  the  child  against 
error  and  confusion. 

4.  The  sentences,  descriptive  of  the  acts  of  walking,  standing,  lying,  sitting, 
&c.,  which  I  gave  the  children  to  learn,  led  Krusi  to  perceive  the  connection 
between  the  beginnings  of  my  instruction  and  the  purpose  at  which  I  was  aiming, 
viz.,  to  produce  a  general  clearness  in  the  mind  on  all  subjects.     lie  soon  felt, 
that  if  children  are  made  to  describe  in  this  manner  things  which  are  so  clear  to 
them  that  experience  can  not  render  them  any  clearer,  they  must  thereby  bo 
checked  in  the  presumption  of  describing  things  of  which  they  have  no  knowledge  ; 
and,  at  the  same  time,  they  must  acquire  the  power  of  describing  whatever  they 
do  know,  to  a  degree  which  will  enable  them  to  give  consistent,  definite,  concise, 
and  comprehensive  descriptions  of  whatever  falls  within  reach  of  their  observation. 

5.  A  few  words  which  I  dropped  on  one  occasion,  on  the  tendency  of  my 
method  to  abate  prejudice,  struck  him  very  forcibly.     Speaking  of  the  manifold 
exertions,    and    the    tedious    arguments,    by    which    prejudices    are    generally 
combated,  I  observed  that  these  means  had  about  as  much  power  to  counteract 
them  as  the  ringing  of  the  bells  had  to  disperse  thunder-storms,*  but  that  the 
only  true  safeguard  against  the  influences  of  prejudice  was  a  conviction  of  the 
truth,  founded  upon  self-observation.     For  truth,  so  acquired,  is  in  its  very  nature 
an  impediment  to  the  reception  of  prejudice  and  error  in  the  mind  ;  so  much  so, 
that  if  men  thus  taught  are  made  acquainted  with  the  existence  of  prevailing  false 
notions  by  the  never-ceasing  cant  of  society,  there  is  not  in  their  minds  any  ground  for 
that  ignoble  seed  to  rest  on,  or  to  grow  up  in,  and  the  effect  must  therefore  be  very 
different  from  what  it  proves  to  be  in  the  common-place  men  of  our  age,  who 
have  both  truth  and  error  thrust  into  their  imagination,  not  by  intuition  and 
observation,  but  by  the  mere  charm  of  words,  as  it  were  by  a  magic  lantern. 

When  reflecting  upon  these  remarks,  he  came  to  the  conviction,  that  the  silence 
with  which,  in  my  plan  of  instruction,  errors  and  prejudice  were  passed  over, 
was  likely  to  prove  more  effectual  in  counteracting  them  than  all  the  endless 
verbiage  which  he  had  hitherto  seen  employed  for  that  purpose. 

6.  In  consequence  of  our  gathering  plants  during  the  summer,  and  of  the  con- 
versations to  which  this  gave  rise,  he  was  brought  to  the  conviction  that  the  whole 
round  of  knowledge,  to  the  acquisition  of  which  our  senses  are  instrumental, 
depended  on  an  attentive  observation  of  nature,  and  on  a  careful  collection  and 
preservation  of  whatever  she  presents  to  our  thirst  of  knowledge. 

These  were  the  views  on  the  ground  of  which  he  conceived  the  possibility  of 
establishing  such  a  method  of  instruction  as  he  felt  was  most  needed  ;  viz.,  one 
which  would  cause  all  the  branches  of  knowledge  to  bear  upon  one  another,  with 
sueh  coherence  and  consistency  as  would  require,  on  the  part  of  the  master, 
nothing  but  a  knowledge  of  the  mode  of  applying  it,  anrl,  with  that  knowledge, 
would  enable  him  to  obtain,  not  only  for  his  children  but  even  for  himself,  all 
that  is  considered  to  be  the  object  of  instruction.  That  is  to  say,  he  saw  that, 
with  this  method,  positive  learning  might  be  dispensed  with,  and  that  nothing  was 
wanted  but  sound  common  sense,  and  practicable  ability  in  teaching,  in  order  not 
only  to  lead  the  minds  of  children  to  the  acquirement  of  solid  information,  but 
likewise  to  bring  parents  and  teachers  to  a  satisfactory  degree  of  independence 
and  unfettered  mental  activity  concerning  those  branches  of  knowledge,  in  which 
they  would  submit  themselves  to  the  course  prescribed  by  the  method. 

During  his  six  years'  experience  as  village  schoolmaster,  a  considerable 
number  of  children,  of  all  ages,  had  passed  through  his  hands;  but  with  all  the 
pains  he  took,  he  had  never  seen  the  faculties  of  the  children  developed  to  the 
degree  to  which  they  were  carried  by  my  plan  ;  nor  had  he  ever  witnessed  in 
them  such  an  extent  and  solidity  of  knowledge,  precision  of  thought,  and 
independence  of  feeling. 

He  inquired  into  the  causes  of  the  difference  between  his  school  and  mine. 

He  found,  in  the  first  instance,  that,  even  at  the  earliest  period  of  instruction, 
a  certain  feeling  of  energy  was  not  so  much  produced, — for  it  exists  in  every 
mind  not  enervated  by  artificial  treatment,  as  an  evidence  of  innate  power. — as 
kept  alive  in  consequence  of  my  beginning  at  the  very  easiest  task,  and  exercising 

*  It  is  a  superstitious  practice,  kept  up  to  this  day  in  many  parts  of  Swit/erland  and  Ger- 
many, to  rimr  lire  church-hells  at  the  approach  of  a  thunder-storm,  under  the  impression  that 
the  sacred  toll  wiil  effectually  remove  the  danger. 


170  HERMANN  KRUSI. 

it  to  a  point  of  practical  perfection  before  I  proceeded ;  which,  again,  was  not 
done  in  an  incoherent  manner,  but  by  a  gradual  and  almost  insensible  addition  to 
what  the  child  had  already  acquired. 

With  this  method,  he  used  to  say,  you  need  not  push  on  children,  you  have 
only  to  lead  them.  Formerly,  whatever  he  wanted  to  teach,  he  was  obliged  to 
introduce  by  some  such  phrase  as  this :  "  Pray,  do  think,  if  you  please  !"  "  Can't 
you  remember,  now  ?" 

It  could  not  be  otherwise.  If,  for  instance,  in  arithmetic,  he  asked,  "  How 
many  times  seven  are  there  in  sixty-three?"  the  child  had  no  palpable  basis  on 
which  to  rest  his  inquiry  for  the  answer,  and  was,  therefore,  unable  to  solve  the 
question,  otherwise  than  by  a  wearisome  process  of  recollection  ;  but,  according 
to  my  method,  he  has  nine  times  seven  objects  before  him,  which  he  has  learned 
to  count  as  nine  sevens;  the  answer  to  the  above  question  is,  therefore,  with  him, 
not  a  matter  of  memory  ;  for  although  the  question,  perhaps,  may  be  put  to  him 
for  the  first  time,  yet  he  knew  long  ago,  by  intuition  and  practice,  that  in  sixty- 
three  there  are  nine  sevens  5  and  the  same  is  the  case  in  all  the  other  branches 
of  my  method. 

To  adduce  another  instance :  he  had  in  vain  endeavored  to  accustom  his 
children  to  write  the  initials  of  substantives  with  capital  letters  ;*  the  rule  by 
which  they  were  to  go  was  constantly  forgotten.  Now,  on  the  contrary,  the  same 
children,  having  read  through  some  pages  of  a  vocabulary  constructed  on  my 
plan,  conceived  of  themselves  the  idea  of  continuing  that  vocabulary  out  of  their 
own  resources,  and,  by  writing  long  lists  of  substantives,  proved  that  they  had  a 
clear  notion  of  the  distinctive  character  of  that  sort  of  words.  The  remark  which 
Kriisi  made,  that  with  this  method  children  do  not  want  to  be  pushed  on,  is  so 
correct,  that  it  may  be  considered  as  a  proof  of  something  imperfect  in  the  mode 
of  instruction,  if  the  child  still  requires  any  kind  of  stimulus  to  thought ;  and  the 
method  can  be  considered  as  perfect  only  where  every  exercise  proposed  to  the 
child  is  so  immediately  the  result  of  what  he  has  learned  before,  that  it  requires 
no  other  exertion  on  his  part  than  the  application  of  what  he  already  knows. 

Kriisi  further  observed  that  the  detached  words  and  pictures,  which  I  used  to 
lay  before  the  children  in  teaching  them  to  read,  produced  upon  their  minds  a 
very  different  effect  from  that  of  the  compound  phrases  commonly  used  in  schools. 
He,  therefore,  now  began  to  examine  these  phrases  themselves  somewhat  more 
closely,  and  he  found  that  it  was  utterly  impossible  for  children  to  form  any 
distinct  notions  of  the  different  words  of  which  they  are  composed  ;  because  they 
do  not  consist  of  simple  elements  before  known  to  the  children,  and  put  together 
in  an  obvious  connection,  but  that  they  are  unintelligible  combinations  of  objects 
mostly  or  entirely  unknown.  To  employ  children's  minds  in  the  unraveling  of 
such  phrases  is  contrary  to  nature  ;  it  exceeds  their  powers,  and  leads  to  delusion, 
inasmuch  as  it  introduces  them  to  trains  of  ideas  which  are  perfectly  foreign  to 
them,  as  regards  not  only  the  nature  of  the  objects  to  which  they  refer,  but 
likewise  the  artificial  language  in  which  they  are  clothed,  and  of  which  the 
children  have  not  even  acquired  the  bare  elements.  Kriisi  saw  that  I  was  no  advocate 
for  this  hodge-podge  of  pedantry  ;  but  that  I  did  with  my  children  as  nature  docs 
with  savages,  first  bringing  an  image  before  their  eyes,  and  then  seeking  a  word 
to  express  the  perception  to  which  it  gives  rise.  He  saw  that,  from  so  simple  an 
acquaintance  with  the  object,  no  conclusions,  no  inferences  followed;  that  there 
was  no  doctrine,  no  point  of  opinion  inculcated,  nothing  that  would  prematurely 
excite  them  to  decide  between  truth  and  error  ;  it  was  a  mere  matter  of  intuition, 
a  real  basis  for  conclusions  and  inferences  to  be  drawn  hereafter  ;  a  guide  to  future 
discoveries,  which,  as  well  as  their  past  experience,  they  might  associate  with  the 
substantial  knowledge  thus  acquired. 

He  entered  more  and  more  into  the  spirit  of  my  method  ;  he  perceived  that 
every  thing  depended  on  reducing  the  different  branches  of  knowledge  to  their 
very  simplest  elements,  and  proceeding  from  them  in  an  uninterrupted  progress, 
by  small  and  gradual  additions.  He  became  every  dny  better  fitted  to  second  me 
in  the  experiments  which  I  myself  made  on  the  ground  of  the  above  principles; 
and,  with  his  assistance,  I  completed,  in  a  short  time,  a  spelling-book,  and  a 
course  of  arithmetic,  upon  my  own  plan. 

*  In  the  German  lanjjuace,  every  snbetantive,  and  every  word  used  as  a  substantive  is 
written  at  the  beginning  with  a  capital  letter. 


HERMANN  KRUSI.  Ifl 

Kriisi  himself  considered  the  time  he  spent  in  Burgdorf  the  happiest 
and  most  fruitful  of  all  his  life.  The  conviction  that  they  were 
laboring  for  a  cause  which  was  to  exert  an  influence  for  good  upon 
thousands  of  their  fellow-men  filled  all  the  laborers  there  with  enthu- 
siasm, and  made  every  effort  and  every  new  creation  a  delight  which 
they  would  not  have  exchanged  for  all  the  treasures  of  earth. 

The  important  year  1805,  in  which  Napoleon  decreed  the  resepa- 
ration  of  Switzerland,  brought  the  institution  at  Burgdorf  to  an  end ; 
the  castle  reverted  to  the  canton  and  was  occupied  by  the  high  bailiff. 
Pestalozzi,  after  contemplating  for  some  time  the  transfer  of  his  insti- 
tution to  Miinchenbuchsee,  determined  to  continue  it  at  Yverdun,  on 
the  lake  of  Neufchatel.  For  this  purpose  he  received  permission  to 
use  the  old  castle  there ;  and  all  his  teachers  joyfully  gathered  around 
him  again.  In  Yverdun,  the  institution  acquired  a  European  reputa- 
tion ;  from  all  directions  there  resorted  to  it  not  only  pupils,  (of  whom 
it  contained  in  its  most  prosperous  condition  above  two  hundred,)  but 
also  youths  and  men  of  riper  age  and  experience,  who  sought  to 
become  acquainted  with  the  discoveries  of  Pestalozzi,  in  order  to  fit 
themselves  for  learning  and  teaching  in  the  great  field  of  human  edu- 
cation. An  active  and  significant  life  grew  up  within  the  walls  of 
the  modest  little  institution,  to  which  there  gathered  pilgrims  both 
great  and  small  from  all  parts  of  Europe.  The  seed  there  sown  bore 
fruit  a  thousand-fold  throughout  all  parts  of  Germany,  and  especially 
in  Prussia,  where  the  benevolent  king  highly  valued  the  efforts  and 
the  method  of  Pestalozzi,  and  sent  several  young  men  of  talents  to 
make  themselves  acquainted  with  the  latter. 

Besides  this  undertaking,  whose  good  influence  was  intended  to 
reach  boys,  youths,  and  men  of  all  classes  and  of  all  beliefs,  Pestalozzi's 
scheme  contemplated  also  the  extension  of  the  advantages  of  an 
improved  education  to  girls,  in  order  that  they  might  be  trained  in 
their  great  vocation  as  mothers.  To  this  end  he  connected  with  his 
institution,  in  1806,  a  girls'  institute,  under  the  management  of  Kriisi 
and  Ilopf,  the  latter  of  whom  was  married.  This  institution  succeeded. 
Pestalozzi's  best  teachers  helped  to  instruct  in  it.  Among  those  who 
patronized  it,  Kriisi  always  remembered  with  affection  a  wealthy 
landowner,  (Stamm,)  of  Schleitheim,  who  sent  to  Yverdun  not  only 
four  daughters,  but  a  niece  as  a  sort  of  guardian,  two  nephews,  and  a 
young  man  who  he  was  assisting  to  train  himself  for  the  work  of 
teaching.  Truly  we  might  almost  say,  in  the  words  of  Jesus,  *•  I  have 
not  found  such  faith,  no,  not  in  Israel !"  Of  the  operations  of  the 
institution  Kriisi  says :  "It  gives  us  heartfelt  pleasure;  but  we  had 
not  foreseen  the  continually  greater  demands  to  be  made  upon  our 


172  HERMANN  KRUSI. 

strength  and  time  in  order  to  comply  with  its  requirements.  We 
had,  therefore,  only  the  choice  remaining  to  devote  ourselves  wholly 
to  one  institution  or  the  other.  Pestalozzi  undertook  the  management 
of  the  new  institution,  with  which  I  remained  in  friendly  communica- 
tion. The  domestic  management  and  moral  instruction  were  all 
under  the  charge  of  several  female  teachers,  until  Rosette  Kasthofer, 
afterward  Niederer's  wife,  resolved  to  make  it  the  object  of  her  life  to 
conduct  the  institution,  in  order  to  the  accomplishment  of  Pestalozzi's 
views.  To  this  purpose  she  yet  remains  true.  Although  the 
shortness  of  my  experience  will  not  allow  me  to  claim  the  ability  to 
educate  skillful  female  teachers  and  good  mothers  of  families,  it  will 
always  give  me  pleasure  to  remember  that  the  united  efforts  of  my 
celebrated  friend  and  myself  called  the  institution  into  life." 

Krusi's  wife  also  received  her  education  in  this  institution ;  but 
after  he  had  resigned  the  management  of  it.  We,  and  all  who  knew 
him,  must  agree  that  the  simplicity  and  goodness  of  his  disposition 
peculiarly  fitted  him  for  teaching  girls,  although  he  first  undertook  it 
at  the  age  of  thirty. 

Krusi's  recollections  of  this  period  were  numerous;  but  we  must 
confine  ourselves  to  a  very  few  of  them.  His  acquaintance  with 
Katherine  Egger,  afterward  his  wife,  had  already  commenced  in 
1810-12.  She  subsequently  removed  to  Miihlhausen,  to  assist  her 
sister  in  her  school  there ;  and  we  shall  derive  part  of  our  information 
from  the  correspondence  between  them. 

In  this  correspondence  he  speaks  most  frequently  of  Father  Pesta- 
lozzi, and  of  Niederer,  who  was  always  intellectually  active,  but  at 
that  time  often  depressed  in  spirits.  The  reverence  and  love  with 
which  all  the  friends  and  fellow-laborers  there,  to  the  ends  of  their 
lives,  spoke  of  Father  Pestalozzi,  sufficiently  refute  the  incorrect 
things  now  frequently  heard  on  this  subject. 

Thus  Kriisi  says  in  one  place : — 

"Father  Pestalozzi  is  always  cheerful,  and  works  with  youthful 
energy.  We  often  wonder  at  his  enthusiasm,  which  will  yield  neither 
to  labor  nor  to  age.  I  seek  to  avoid  unpleasant  collisions  between 
dissimilar  views;  and  sincerely  desire  that  my  labor  may  always 
satisfy  him." 

And  again,  about  Niederer. 

"Niederer  is  working  like  a  giant.  A  defence  of  the  institution 
against  wrong  impressions  and  a  true  exposition  of  Pestalozzi's 
designs  will  soon  appear  in  print.  Few  men  are  able  to  work  like 
him." 

Even  from  these  few  lines  we  obtain  a  deep  view  of  the  characters 


HERMANN  KRUSI.  1^3 

of  these  three  fellow-workmen.  Of  Kriisi's  own  labors  in  the  institu- 
tion we  shall  let  Pestalozzi  himself  speak,  further  on.  A  letter  from 
Kriisi,  January  loth,  1812,  on  occasion  of  Pestalozzi's  birth-day,  gives 
us  a  view  of  the  feelings  and  relations  of  the  pupils  toward  the  father 
of  the  institution  : 

"  The  day,"  (writes  Kriisi  to  his  betrothed,)  "  was  a  glorious  one,  and  rich  in  seeds 
and  fruits  for  the  growth  and  strengthening  of  the  soul  and  the  heart.  I  can  give 
you  only  points  of  recollections  of  it :  from  these  points  you  may  complete  the 
lines  and  the  whole  picture  froin  your  own  fancy."  lie  proceeds  to  give  a  cir- 
cumstantial account  of  the  festivities  in  the  schoolroom  of  each  class.  The  decora- 
tions in  those  of  the  third  and  fourth  classes  were  especially  ingenious.  In  the 
third  were  to  be  seen  : 

a.  A  transparency  of  Neuhof,  the  village  of  Birr,  and  the  high  land  of  Brunegg. 
(It  was  here  that  Pestalozzi  first  attempted  to  realize  his  benevolent  plans  for  the 
education  of  poor  factory  children.) 

b.  Opposite  to  this  Pestalozzi's  bust,  of  wood,  crowned  with  a  wreath  of  laurels 
and  immortals. 

c.  On  each  side  of  this,  a  transparency  with  an  inscription :  on  the  right,  in 
German,  "  May  God  who  gave  thee  to  us,  bless  thy  work  and  us  long  through 
thee  !"  on  the  left,  in  French,  "  Homage  to  our  father !  the  pure  joy  of  our  hearts 
proclaims  our  happiness." 

The  room  of  the  fourth  class  was  arranged  to  represent  a  landscape,  in  which 
were  to  be  seen  : 

a.  Cultivated  land  and  meadows. 

b.  A  rock. 

c.  A  spring  rising  at  the  foot  of  the  rock,  and  a  brook  flowing  from  it  and  fer- 
tilizing the  land. 

d.  Near  this  a  poor  dwelling ;  a  hut  roofed  with  straw. 

e.  Over  its  door  the  words,  "  May  his  age  be  peaceful." 

f.  In  another  place  an  altar. 

g.  Over  it  the  words,  in  a  transparency,  ''  May  poverty  remember  him  !" 
h.  On  one  side  of  it,  "  May  we  live  like  him  !" 

i.  Upon  it,  a  poor's-box,  with  a  letter  from  all  the  members  of  the  class. 

As  soon  as  Father  Pestalozzi  entered  the  chamber,  a  little  genius  came  forward 
from  the  hut  to  meet  him,  and  handed  him  the  poor's-box  and  the  letter.  He 
was  so  surprised  and  affected  that  he  could  scarcely  read  it.  Its  contents  were 
as  follows : 

"  Dear  Ilerr  Pestalozzi ! 

"  It  is  very  little,  it  is  true,  which  we,  both  the  present  and  former  members 
of  the  class,  save  in  the  course  of  the  year $  which  amount  we  now  offer  you  as  a 
feeble  testimony  of  the  depth  of  our  love  ;  but  we  are  glad  to  be  able  to  say  that 
at  least  it  comes  from  sincere  hearts;  and  shall  this  please  you,  our  end  will  have 
been  gained.  It  may  express  to  you  our  purpose  hereafter  doing  still  more  for 
the  poor,  and  like  yourself,  of  finding  our  own  happiness  in  that  of  others. 
May  we  use  well  the  time  of  our  stay  here,  and  by  our  efforts  evermore  deserve 
your  love.  May  you  be  happy  among  us !  Full  of  gratitude  to  God,  we  embrace 
you  affectionately,  with  the  wish  that  you  may  live  to  see  us  fulfill  this  promise." 

The  money  given  amounted  to  fifty-two  Swiss  francs.  Besides  the  displays  of 
the  children,  the  printers  had  a  transparency  with  the  words,  "  May  the  press 
send  forth  hereafter,  no  longer  your  life,  but  only  the  ripe  and  beautiful  fruit  of 
that  life." 

Kriisi  also  describes  some  festivities  which  Pestalozzi  arranged  for 
his  pupils  in  order  on  his  part  to  give  them  pleasure.  From  this  pro- 
duction it  is  evident  with  what  love  and  reverence  he  was  regarded 
by  the  members  of  his  household,  and  how  they  all  endeavored  to 
make  his  days  pass  in  happiness  and  comfort. 

In   1812   Pestalozzi  contracted   by   carelessness  a  severe  illness, 


174  HERMANN   KRUSI. 

during  which  he  would  have  Kriisi  almost  incessantly  with  him  as  a 
nurse.  The  latter  performed  that  office  with  his  usual  tenderness  and 
self-sacrifice;  bearing  patiently  with  his  weaknesses,  and  taking 
pleasure  in  every  remarkable  expression  of  his  friend.  Thus  he 
writes  from  the  side  of  the  sick  bed  to  his  betrothed : 

Our  father  is  remarkable  even  in  his  sickness.  He  is  wishing  and  longing  to 
be  well  again,  and  to  be  able  to  apply  himself  to  his  labors  once  more  with 
renewed  strength;  but  yet  he  looks  peacefully  upon  death,  close  before  him. 
One  day  while  his  doctors  were  consulting  about  sending  to  Lausanne  for  a 
surgeon,  he  asked  them  cheerfully  if  he  must  set  his  house  in  order.  When  they 
were  gone,  he  paid  to  Elizabeth,  his  faithful  housekeeper,  (Kriisi's  sister-in-law,) 
that  he  was  willing  to  die  ;  that  the  world  cost  him  no  regrets.  To  be  able  thus 
to  look  upon  life  and  the  eternity  is  a  beautiful  and  soul-elevating  thing.  I  am  in 
hopes  that  God  will  spare  him  to  us;  but  I  can  not  tell  you  how  much  I  am 
benefitted  by  seeing  his  peacefulness  under  such  circumstances. 

When  the  disease  began  to  yield  to  the  efforts  of  the  physicians, 
Kriisi's  joy  expressed  itself  in  the  following  language :  "  Had  the  in- 
scrutable providence  of  God  taken  him  from  us,  I  would  not  resign 
for  the  whole  world  the  recollections  of  having  cared  for  him  and  of 
having  been  continually  near  him.  He  takes  every  occasion  of 
expressing  his  pleasure  at  your  return  and  of  blessing  our  union. 
May  God  make  you  happy  with  me.  You  know  my  faith  in  the 
wise  saying, '  The  father's  blessing  builds  the  childrens'  house,  <fec.'  He 
will  build  our  house  for  us ;  not  of  wood  or  stone,  but  even  if  it  be 
the  most  lowly  hut,  a  dwelling  of  peace,  love,  truth,  and  pious  labor." 

Pestalozzi  repaid  this  love  with  paternal  tenderness.  With  such 
feelings  he  addressed  to  Kriisi's  intended  the  following  characteristic 
words  :  "  Good  day,  Trineli !  as  long  as  things  go  well  let  us  see  each 
other  and  enjoy  each  others'  society.  When  things  no  longer  go 
well,  and  you  see  me  no  more,  then  do  you  and  Kriisi  continue  to  do 
right,  and  I  shall  take  pleasure  in  you  on  the  other  side  of  the  grave." 

Still  deeper  in  feeling  are  the  words  which  Pestalozzi,  in  a  Christmas 
address  before  all  the  members  of  the  institution,  addressed  to  Kriisi 
personally.* 

To  Niederer  he  says  : —   „ 

Niederer,  thou  first  of  my  sons,  what  shall  I  say  to  thee  ?  what  shall  I  wish 
thee  ?  how  shall  I  thank  thee  ?  thou  piercest  to  the  depths  of  truth,  and  with 
steady  footsteps  goest  through  its  labyrinth.  The  love  of  high  mysteries  conducts 
thee.  Courageously,  with  iron  breast,  thou  throwest  down  the  gauntlet  to  every 
one  who,  wandering  in  by-paths,  strays  from  the  ways  of  truth,  regards  appearances 
only,  and  would  deceive  his  God.  Friend,  thou  art  my  support;  my  house  rests 
upon  thy  heart ;  and  thine  eye  beams  a  light  which  is  its  health,  though  my 
weakness  often  fears  it.  Niederer  !  preside  over  my  house  like  a  protecting  star. 
May  peace  dwell  in  thy  soul,  and  may  thine  outward  body  be  no  impediment  to 
thy  spirit.  Thus  will  a  greater  blessing  arise  to  the  help  of  my  weakness  from 
thy  mind  and  thy  heart. 

Kriisi,  be  ever  stronger  in  thy  goodness.  Among  lovely  children,  thyself 
lovely  and  childlike,  thou  dost  establish  the  spirit  of  the  house  in  its  goodness;  in 
the  spirit  of  holy  love. 

*  Tobler  had  already  left  Yverdun. 


HERMANN  KRUSI.  J  75 

At  thy  side  and  within  thy  loving  influence,  the  child  in  our  house  no  longer 
feels  tluit  he  is  without  father  or  mother.  Thou  decidest  the  doubt  whether  a 
teacher  can  be  in  the  place  of  a  father  and  mother.  Go  and  fill  thy  place  still 
more  efficiently  and  completely. 

Kriisi,  upon  thee  also  I  build  great  hopes.  It  is  not  enough  to  know  the 
method  of  human  education  ;  the  teacher  must  know  the  mild  and  easy  steps  with 
which  the  kind  mother  leads  along  that  road.  That  way  thou  knowest  and 
gocst  ;  and  thou  dost  keep  the  child  longer  in  that  loving  road  of  his  first  instruc- 
tion than  even  his  mother  can.  Complete  thy  knowledge;  and  tell  us  the  begin- 
nings of  childish  knowledge,  with  thine  own  inimitable  union  of  childlikeness  and 
dfh'niteness.  Thou  didst  bring  Niederer  hither  as  thy  brother,  and  livest  with 
him  in  oneness  of  mind  and  soul.  May  the  bond  of  your  old  friendship  ever  knit 
itself  more  closely  ;  you  are  the  firstlings  of  my  house ;  and  the  only  ones  that 
remain  of  them.  I  am  not  always  of  the  same  mind  with  you;  but  my  soul 
depends  upon  you.  I  should  no  longer  know  my  house,  and  should  fear  for  its 
continuance,  were  your  united  strength  to  be  removed  from  it.  But  you  will  not 
leave  it,  beloved,  only  remaining  firstlings  of  my  house. 

We  may  see  from  the  deep  feeling  and  strong  expressions  of  these 
words  how  much  Pestalozzi  valued  Kriisi's  quiet  and  modest  labors, 
and  how  well  Kriisi  deserved  that  value.  Scarcely  one  out  of  twenty 
teachers  has  the  ability  to  enter  fully  into  the  nature  and  needs  of 
children,  to  bear  patiently  with  their  weaknesses,  to  be  pleased  with 
the  smallest  step  of  progress,  and  to  become  fully  accomplished  in 
the  profession.  Upon  the  management  of  such  young  natures,  Kriisi 
gives  his  opinion  in  a  letter  upon  the  significance  of  the  smallest 
opinions.  We  give  an  extract  from  it,  as  useful  and  important  to  all 
teachers. 

It  requires  much  experience  to  develop  the  heavenly  from  the  earthly.  I  can 
assure  you  of  this,  that  the  world  is  by  no  means  the  comedy  that  it  seems ;  and 
what  we  call  indifference  is  often  far  more  definitely  good  or  bad  than  men  con- 
sider. The  common  appearances  of  life  are  only  indifferent  to  us  when  we  do 
not  understand  their  connections,  and  set  too  little  value  upon  their  influence  over 
us,  for  weal  or  woe.  But  the  purer  our  soul  is,  the  clearer  is  our  perception  of 
the  value  or  worthlessness  of  every  day  and  usual  affairs  ;  the  more  do  we  become 
able  to  perceive  fine  distinctions,  and  the  freer  do  we  become  in  our  own  choice 
and  the  more  independent  in  our  connections. 

He  whose  perceptions  of  the  infinite  varieties  of  plants  have  not  been  cultivated 
sees  nothing  in  the  meadow  hut  grass  ;  and  a  whole  mountain  will  contain  for  him 
scarcely  a  dozen  blossoms  which  attract  his  attention.  How  different  is  the  case 
with  him  who  knows  the  wonders  of  their  construction.  He  hears  himself 
addressed  from  every  side  ;  the  smallest  thing  has  significance  for  him  ;  lie  could 
employ  a  thousand  eyes  instead  of  his  two.  In  their  least  parts,  even  to  the  very 
dust  that  clings  to  his  fingers,  he  perceives  mysteries  which  lead  his  mind  to  the 
loftiest  views,  and  give  his  heart  the  liveliest  pleasure.  As  it  is  here  so  it  is 
everywhere.  One  mother  will  see  only  the  coarsest  physical  wants  of  her  child, 
and  hears  it  only  when  it  begins  to  cry.  Another  will  penetrate  entirely  into  its 
inner  being  ;  and  as  she  is  able  to  direct  this,  so  she  is  entirely  different  in  respect 
to  its  outward  management.  Nothing  that  concerns  it  is  indifferent  to  her. 
Kvi'iy  thing  is  an  expression  of  its  being;  and  thus  even  the  least  thing  acquires 
a  high  significance  in  her  eyes. 

The  small  and  loveable  children  who  were  so  often  sent  to  the  Pes- 
talozzian  institution — much  to  its  credit — always  attached  themselves 
especially  to  Kriisi.  From  his  views  as  above  given,  we  may  imagine 
with  what  wisdom  he  taught  these  little  ones,  and  sought  to  awaken 
their  m'nds  and  preserve  their  innocence.  To  the  same  purpose  are 


}>76  HERMANN  KRUSI. 

the  following  notices  in  his  diary,  which  it  is  true  contain  no  very  im- 
portant facts,  but  which  nevertheless,  are  the  clear  marks  of  a  man 
inspired  by  the  holiness  of  his  calling  : 

"  I  often  pray  at  evening  when  T  go  to  bed,  that  the  dear  God  will  let  me  fimf 

something  new  in  nature,"  said  W.  M. ,  a  boy  of  ten  years  old,  who  had 

found  in  one  of  his  walks,  a  stone  which  he  had  not  before  known.  This  holy 
habit,  (continues  Kriisi,)  of  referring  every  thing  immediately  to  the  Almighty 
hand,  is  a  sure  sign  of  a  pure  soul ;  every  expression  of  it  was  therefore  of 
•infinite  value  to  me.  I  thanked  God  that  by  means  of  it  I  had  been  able  to  see 
further  into  the  heart  of  this  good  child. 

"  It  is  hard  for  me  to  write  a  letter,"  said  S ,  when  he  was  set  to  write  to 

his  parents,  and  found  it  difficult.  Why  ?  said  I  •  adding,  you  are  now  a  year 
older,  and  ought  to  be  better  able  to  do  it.  "  Yes,"  said  he,  "but  a  year  ago  1 
could  say  every  thing  I  knew;  but  now  I  know  more  than  I  can  say."  This 
answer  astonished  me.  It  came  from  deep  within  the  being  of  the  child.  Every 
child,  in  his  liking  and  capacity  for  writing  letters,  must  pass  through  periods, 
which  it  is  necessary  for  his  parents  or  teachers  to  know,  lest  without  knowing  or 
wishing  it,  they  should  do  the  children  some  harm. 

E ,  nine  years  old,  said  yesterday,  "  One  who  is  clever  should  not  be  told 

wrhat  '  clever '  means.  But  one  wlio  is  stupid  will  not  understand  it,  and  he  may 
be  told  as  much  as  you  like." 

Th.  T- ,  six  years  old,  sees  God  everywhere  as  an  omnipresent  man  before 

him.  God  gives  the  birds  their  food  ;  God  has  a  thousand  hands ;  God  sits  upon 
all  the  trees  and  flowers. 

J.  T ,  on  the  contrary,  has  an  entirely  different  view  of  God.  To  him  he 

is  a  being  far  off,  but  who  from  afar  sees,  hears,  and  controls  every  thing.  Are 
you  also  dear  to  God?  I  asked  him.  "  I  do  not  know,"  he  answered  ;  "but  I 
know  that  you  are  dear  to  him.  All  good  men  are  dear  to  him."  I  was  so  as- 
tonished to  hear  the  child  thus  express  his  views  of  God,  and  of  myself,  and  his 
childlike  respect  and  dependence  upon  his  teacher,  that  I  dared  question  him  no 
longer,  lest  I  should  not  treat  with  sufficient  tenderness  and  wisdom,  this  spark 
of  the  divine. 

These  extracts  will  sufficiently  show  that  Krusi  considered  the 
hearts  of  his  pupils  as  holy  things,  which  it  was  his  business  to  keep 
in  the  right  path.  He  was  never  ashamed,  even  in  his  old  age,  to 
learn  from  children  ;  and  the  traits  and  efforts  of  earliest  childhood 
often  afforded  him  help  in  the  construction  of  a  natural  system  of 
instruction. 

Every  child  that  I  have  ever  observed,  writes  Krusi,  in  his  "Efforts  and 
Experiences,"  (Destrebungen  und  ErfahrungenJ  during  all  my  life,  has  passed 
through  certain  remarkable  questioning  periods,  which  seem  to  originate  from  his 
inner  being.  After  each  had  passed  through  the  early  time  of  lisping  and  stam- 
mering, into  that  of  speaking,  and  had  come  to  the  questioning  period,  he  re- 
peated at  every  new  phenomenon,  the  question,  "What  is  that?"  If  for 
answer  he  received  a  name  of  the  thing,  it  completely  satisfied  him  ;  he  wished  to 
know  no  more.  After  a  number  of  months,  a  second  state  made  its  appearance, 
in  which  the  child  followed  its  first  question  with  a  second  :  "  What  is  there  in 
it  ?"  After  some  more  months,  there  came  of  itself  the  third  question  :  "  Who 
made  it?"  and  lastly,  the  fourth,  "What  do  they  do  with  it?"  These  questions 
had  much  interest  for  me,  and  I  spent  much  reflection  upon  them.  In  the  end  it 
became  clear  to  me,  that  the  child  had  struck  out  the  right  method  for  developing 
its  thinking  faculties.  In  the  first  question.  "What  is  that?"  he  was  trying  to  get 
a  consciousness  of  the  thing  lying  before  him.  By  the  second,  "  What  is  there 
in  it?"  he  was  trying  to  perceive  and  understand  its  interior,  and  its  general  and 
special  marks.  The  third,  "Who  made  it?"  pointed  towards  the  origin  and 
creation  of  the  thing  ;  and  the  fourth,  "  What  do  they  do  with  it  ?"  evidently  points 
at  the  use,  and  design  of  the  thing.  Thus  this  series  of  questions  seemed  to  me 


HERMANN  KRUSI.  1*7 

to  include  in  itself  the  complete  system  of  mental  training.  That  this  originated 
with  the  child  is  not  only  no  objection  to  it,  but  is  strong  indication  that  the  laws 
of  thought  are  within  the  nature  of  the  child  in  their  simplest  and  most  ennobling 
form. 

That  Kriisi  was  now  writing  his  experiences  with  a  view  to  others, 
and  was  continually  occupying  his  mind  with  reflections  upon  all 
the  appearances  of  nature  and  of  life,  the  following  words  show : 

Thus  I  have  again  gained  a  whole  hour  of  instruction.  I  had  four  divisions  in 
mental  arithmetic.  Each  of  them,  as  soon  as  it  had  found  the  clue,  taught  itself; 
all  that  I  had  to  do  was  to  oversee,  and  to  assist.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  teach  in  that 
way,  and  a  sweet  consciousness  rewards  the  labor.  But  still,  arithmetic  is  not  the 
chief  subject  which  occupies  my  mind.  For  had  I  the  opportunity,  I  could  do 
something  in  the  investigation  of  language.  For  if  matters  turn  out  as  I  am  in 
hopes  they  may,  I  shall  give  some  proof  that  I  have  not  lived  in  vain.  The  study 
of  language  leads  me  on  the  one  hand  to  nature  and  on  the  other  to  the  Bible. 
To  study  the  phenomena  of  the  former,  and  to  become  familiar  with  the  contents 
of  the  latter,  are  the  two  great  objects  which  now  demand  from  me  much  time, 
much  industry,  and  a  pure  and  natural  observation  of  childish  character. 

The  little  work  alluded  to  in  the  above  lines,  bears  the  title,  "  Bib- 
lical views  upon  the  works  and  ways  of  God."  (Biblische  Ansichten 
uber  die  werke  und  wege  Gottes ;)  and  in  it  the  exposition  of  God's 
operations  in  nature,  stated  in  Biblical  language,  was  carried  through 
upon  a  regular  plan.  Kriisi  would  perhaps  have  undertaken  the  work 
in  a  different  manner  at  a  later  period ;  but  the  Bible  was  always  to 
him  a  valued  volume,  in  which  he  studied  not  only  the  divine  teach- 
ings and  similitudes  of  the  New  Testament,  but  also  the  lofty  natural 
descriptions  of  Moses,  Job,  David,  &c.  The  charge  of  deficiency  in 
biblical  religious  feeling  has  often  been  brought  against  the  Pestaloz- 
zians.  For  my  part  I  can  testify  that  even  the  first  of  them  had 
studied  the  Bible  through  and  through,  and  placed  uncommon  value 
upon  it.  Their  child-like  faith  and  love  for  everything  good  and  true, 
fitted  them  especially  for  doing  so  ;  moreover,  they  were  inspired  by 
Pestalozzi's  energetic  Christianity.  The  fact  that  they  always  endeav- 
ored to  bring  a  religious  spirit  into  every  study,  and  especially  into 
that  of  language,  by  awakening  a  love  of  truth,  and  an  active  prepara- 
tion for  every  thing  good  and  beautiful,  is  a  clear  proof  that  a  high 
and  Christian  ideal  was  always  before  their  eyes. 

Kriisi's  heart  was,  so  to  speak,  in  love  with  the  beauties  of  nature 
all  his  life.  In  his  seventieth  year,  every  flower,  tree,  sunrise  and 
sunset,  spoke  to  him  as  distinctly  as  the  first  time  he  saw  them.  He 
perceived  in  nature  that  plain  impression  of  the  divine  energy  which 
is  often  dim  to  adult  men,  and  is  most  plainly  seen  by  children.  And 
he  always  returned  to  nature  to  learn  from  her.  How  she  awakened 
his  sensibilities  will  appear  from  the  following  extract  which  he 
wrote  in  his  diary  and  afterward  sent  to  his  betrothed  : 

It  is  Sunday,  and  a  divinely  beautiful  morning.  More  than  an  hour  before  tta 
rising  of  the  sun,  the  brightness  of  the  morning  light  could  be  seen  upon  the 

12 


178  HERMANN  KRtSI. 

summits  of  the  great  Alpine  chain,  from  Mont.  Blanc,  to  the  TitlisinTJnterwalclen. 
Now  the  majestic  sun  himself  in  heavenly  splendor,  arises  and  lights  up  everything 
before  me.  Why  does  he  begin  his  course  so  quietly  that  we  must  watch  like  a 
sparrow  hawk,  lest  he  escape  our  attention  and  stand  there  before  us  unawares  ? 
If  the  roll  of  the  thunder  were  to  accompany  his  rising,  how  exceedingly  seldom 
would  the  dwellers  in  cities  and  villages  keep  themselves  away  from  this  divine 
spectacle,  which  no  other  earthly  show  even  approaches  ?  And  yet  none  will  be 
away  when  the  roll  of  the  drum  announces  the  coming  of  an  earthly  prince.  So 
I  thought  for  a  moment ;  but  soon  saw  the  silliness  of  my  meditations.  It  is  the 
very  nature  of  light  to  distribute  its  blessings  in  silence.  In  the  moral  world  it 
is  the  same.  The  nearer  one  approaches  to  the  fountain  of  life,  the  more  silent 
are  his  endeavors  to  spread  around  him  light  and  blessings. 

At  the  breaking  of  such  a  day  it  is  as  if  a  world  were  being  created  again. 
Light,  air,  water,  land,  plants,  beasts,  and  men,  appear  to  our  eyes  almost  in  the 
same  order  in  which  they  were  created. 

How  quickly  is  everything  done  which  our  Lord  God  creates  !  and  how  fright- 
fully slow  are  we  in  understanding  even  the  smallest  of  them  !  And  besides  all 
this  quickness  in  creating,  and  slowness  in  comprehending,  how  infinite  is  the 
number  of  things  which  God  places  before  our  eyes !  No  wonder  that  our  knowl- 
edge always  remains  mere  patchwork,  and  that  we  have  to  postpone  so  many 
tilings  to  the  other  side  of  the  grave,  in  the  hope  that  there,  free  from  the  bonds 
of  the  earthly  body,  we  shall  progress  with  an  ever  increasing  speed  from  knowl- 
edge to  knowledge,  and  shall  clearly  understand  how  everything  exists,  in  God, 
which  was  dim  and  perplexed  to  us  here. 

A  strong  and  encouraging  indication  of  our  own  inward  worth  appears  in  the 
expression,  "  The  spirit  explaineth  all  things,  even  the  deep  things  of  God."  But 
it  is  a  trouble  to  most  men,  that  they  cannot  approach  God  by  some  other  means 
than  by  the  spirit ;  by  their  perceptions,  or  by  their  knowledge.  He  only  can 
approach  God  by  the  spirit,  to  whom  nature  opens  her  mysteries  $  to  whom  her 
operations  and  her  purposes  are  known.  But  how  few  are  there  who  attain  even 
to  an  A  B  C  of  knowledge  of  the  world,  from  which,  as  from  a  living  spring,  they 
may  gain  a  pure  and  worthy  conception  of  their  creator.  How  often  must  even 
he  who  has  made  the  study  of  nature  the  business  of  his  life,  whose  knowledge 
surpasses  that  of  millions  of  his  fellow  beings,  stand  still  before  the  most  common 
physical,  mental,  or  moral  phenomenon,  and  exclaim  :  such  mystery  is  too  won- 
derful for  me,  and  too  high  ;  I  can  not  understand  it. 

Then  hail  to  thee,  human  heart !  Through  thy  feelings  is  it,  that  we  can  ap- 
proach more  nearly  to  God  than  through  our  intellectual  powers. 

The  fundamental  human  relation  is  that  of  childhood.  It  is  based  entirely  upon 
love.  Without  our  own  consent  we  enter  into  it.  And  this  same  condition  is 
a^'.-iin  the  highest  aim  which  man  can  propose  to  himself,  as  his  best  preparative 
for  heaven.  The  mind  loses  nothing  by  this  preeminence  of  the  heart ;  on  the 
contrary,  it  is  this  very  preeminence  in  the  growth  of  feeling,  and  in  purity, 
which  gives  a  higher  character  to  the  power  and  exercise  of  the  mind. 

The  effort  of  men  to  know  things  here,  as  God  knows  them,  to  display  the 
order  of  the  heavens,  the  powers  of  the  earth,  and  the  relation  of  the  mind,  in  the 
light  of  earthly  truth,  are  a  holy  trait  of  humanity ;  but  men  in  general  can  not 
find  rest  by  these  efforts.  Everything  elevating  in  the  idea  of  the  creator  and 
ruler  of  the  world  must  appear  to  them  under  the  mild  aspect  of  a  father,  -if  it  is 
to  be  beneficial  and  elevating  to  them.  Without  this  appearance,  his  omnipotence 
would  be  fearful  to  the  weak  mortal,  his  presence  painful,  his  wisdom  indifferent, 
and  his  justice  a  two  edged  sword,  which  hangs  continually  over  his  head  and 
threatens  to  destroy  him.  Only  by  childlike  faith  in  the  fatherhood  of  God  can 
our  race  feel  itself  cared  for,  elevated,  supported  and  guided  ;  or  cultivate  confi- 
dence, gratitude,  love  and  hope,  without  a  destructive  conflict  with  opposing  feel  ings. 

The  roestablishment  of  this  child-like  condition  and  the  revivification  of  the 
holiness  which  proceeds  from  it,  are  the  things  by  which  Christ  has  opened  a  way 
to  God,  and  become  the  saviour  of  the  world. 

Through  him  is  it  that  the  pure  in  heart  may  see  God.  The  simplest  man  has 
the  powers  necessary  for  this  purpose.  They  are  only  the  powers  that  the  child 
exerts  when  he  recognizes  the  love  of  his  parents,  in  the  care  which  they  bestow 
upon  him. 


HERMANN   KRUSI.  179 

Truly,  it  is  wonderful  how  both  termini  of  the  development  of  our  nature— the 
being  a  child,  and  the  becoming  a  child  of  God,  should  be  so  nearly  connected 
with  each  other. 

A  holy  confidence  in  God  is  shown  in  the  letters  in  which  he 
speaks  of  his  prospects  for  a  certain  support  in  the  future.  His  be- 
trothed, who  like  him  had  been  left  destitute  by  the  storm  of  the 
revolution,  had  wandered  away  from  Glarus,  her  native  land,  with  a 
troop  of  poor  children,  and  had  been  received  and  supported  by  some 
respectable  and  benevolent  people  in  Zurich,  had  of  course  no  prop- 
erty :  and  Kriisi's  new  place  with  Pestalozzi,  had  much  more  attract- 
ion for  the  friend  and  follower,  than  for  one  prudent  in  pecuniary 
matters.  Although  Kriisi's  approaching  marriage  must  have  made  a 
certain  income  more  desirable  to  him,  he  still  felt  no  solicitude  about 
it,  like  a  true  believer  in  the  words  of  Jesus,  "  Take  ye  no  thought," 
&c.,  but  expressed  himself  as  follows  : 

God  will  provide.  Whoever  is  conscious  of  strong  IOTO  and  honest  aims  in 
life,  should  act  with  freedom,  and  believe  in  the  prophecy  that  all  things  will  be 
for  the  best.  Has  not  the  being  who  guides  all  things,  thus  far  watched  wonder- 
fully and  benevolently  over  us  and  our  connection  ?  Many  are  troubled  lest  they 
shall  not  receive  what  is  their  own.  Is  it  carelessness  in  me  that  I  have  no  such 
feelings  ? 

I  thank  God  for  the  powers  which  he  has  given  you  and  me  for  our  duties ;  I 
feel  much  more  solicitude  that  we  may  use  these  powers  worthily  of  the  benevo- 
lent God.  At  every  rising  of  uneasiness  I  seem  to  hear  God  saying  to  me  as 
Christ  did  to  his  disciples  on  the  sea,  "  Oh  ye  of  little  faith  !" 

Kriisi  at  last  managed  to  complete  the  indispensable  arrangements 
for  bringing  his  wife  from  Muhlhausen  ;  and  he  was  married  at  Lenz- 
burg,  in  1812.  His  wife  entered  with  confidence  upon  her  new 
sphere  of  life,  with  a  man  who  was  not  only  her  lover,  but  her  teacher 
and  her  paternal  friend.  He  was  not  an  inexperienced  youth,  but  a 
man  thirty-seven  years  old,  in  the  prime  of  his  strength,  and  with  a 
ripeness  of  experience  and  thought,  seldom  found  even  at  his  years. 
His  wife  too,  although  considerably  younger,  had  also  seen  the  rougher 
side  of  life,  and  had  also  felt  the  inspiring  influence  of  a  right  method 
of  education. 

After  his  marriage,  Kriisi  occupied  a  private  house  near  the  castle, 
where  he  had  charge  of  the  deaf  and  dumb  children  of  his  friend 
Kaf,  as  long  as  his  connection  as  teacher  with  the  Pestalozzian 
institution  continued.  This  now  soon  came  to  an  end,  and  under  cir- 
cumstances so  unpleasant  that  we  should  prefer  to  be  silent  upon 
them,  were  it  not  for  removing  from  one  of  Pestalozzi's  oldest  teach- 
ers the  charge  of  ingratitude,  which  many  well  informed  readers  have 
believed  in  consequence  of  this  separation. 

There  has  seldom  been  a  man  who  has  had  so  many  friends  and  so 
few  enemies,  among  so  great  a  variety  of  men,  as  Kriisi ;  thanks  to 
his  mild  and  peace  loving  disposition.  It  was  his  principle  always 


180 


HERMANN   KRUSI. 


rather  to  with  draw  himself,  than  to  make  the  evil  greater  by  obstinacy 
or  violence  in  maintaining  his  views.  This  habit  stood  him  in  good 
stead  in  the  quarrel  which  at  this  time  threatened  to  destroy  Pesta- 
lozzi's  institution.  But  how  was  it  possible,  it  may  be  asked,  that  men 
engaged  in  such  a  noble  enterprise,  could  not  go  on  in  harmony  with 
each  other  ?  It  was  the  work  of  one  man,  a  graduate  of  the  Pesta- 
lozzian  institution,  endowed  with  uncommon  mathematical  talents, 
who  sacrificed  the  peace  of  the  institution  to  his  unbounded  ambition. 
This  man,  Schmid  by  name,  had  contrived,  under  the  name  of  a 
guardian,  to  gain  the  entire  control  of  the  aged  Pestalozzi,  and  little 
by  little  to  alienate  him  from  all  his  old  friends.  As  early  as  1808, 
Kriisi  had  concluded  that  he  could  not  with  honor  remain  longer  in 
the  institution,  and  had  accordingly  written  an  affecting  letter  of 
farewell  to  Pestalozzi,  from  which  we  make  the  following  extracts  : 

Dear  llerr  Postal ozzi : 

God  knows  that  I  have  always  sought  with  an  honest  heart,  the  accomplish- 
ment of  your  holy  plans.  Whenever  I  nave  thought  it  necessary  to  differ  from 
you,  it  has  been  without  any  ulterior  views,  from  love  for  you  and  for  the  good 
of  humanity. 

For  eight  years  the  undisturbed  possession  of  your  paternal  love  has  made  me 
the  happiest  of  men.  Your  present  expressions  upon  the  sequel  of  this  relation, 
pierce  so  much  the  more  deeply,  the  less  I  feel  that  they  are  deserved.  (Here 
follow  some  reasons  for  his  withdrawal.) 

If  it  shall  be  permitted  to  me  to  live  for  the  darlings  of  your  heart,  the  poor, 
and  to  prepare  their  children  to  receive  the  benefits  which  your  efforts  have  se- 
cured for  them,  there  will  again  awaken  in  your  soul  some  faith  in  my  gratitude, 
my  love,  and  my  earnest  endeavor  not  to  have  lived  by  your  side,  in  vain. 

Still  further,  dearest  Pestalozzi  ;,if  I  have  been  to  blame  toward  you,  it  was  only 
by  error.  Forgive  the  child  who  with  sorrow  and  grief  tears  himself  away  from 
his  father  and  his  friend. 

Whether  this  letter  was  delivered  to  Pestalozzi,  is  not  known. 
Kriisi  did  not  leave  at  that  time,  although  Tobler  did,  dissatisfied  for 
various  reasons,  and  sought  another  field  of  labor  at  Basle. 

Schmid  was  at  last,  in  1810,  removed  from  the  institution,  and  for 
a  few  years  the  old  good  understanding  prevailed  there  again.  But 
\vhen  he  returned  and  took  charge  of  the  financial  department,  (Pes- 
talozzi, who  was  well  known  for  a  bad  housekeeper,  not  being  compe- 
tent for  it,)  the  quarrel  came  up  again,  directed  this  time  chiefly 
against  Niederer  and  his  noble  wife,  but  also  against  all  the  other  faith- 
ful laborers  in  the  institution.  Thus,  by  a  departure  of  many  of  the 
best  teachers,  especially  the  German  ones,  it  lost  many  of  its  brightest 
ornaments;  and  in  the  year  1816,  Kriisi  also,  with  a  bleeding  heart, 
sent  his  resignation  to  Pestalozzi,  whom  even  in  his  error  he  loved  and 
respected  ;  but  for  whom  at  that  time  another  person  spoke,  in  terms 
of  the  bitterest  contempt,  and  most  irritating  coldness.  There  is, 
however,  some  trace  of  the  old  affection,  in  Pestalozzi's  answer  to 
Kriisi's  letter : 


HERMANN  KRUSI.  1Q1 

With  sorrow  I  see  a  connection  dissolved,  which  I  would  willingly  have  contin- 
ued unto  my  death,  had  it  been  possible.  It  was  not,  however,  and  I  receive  your 
explanation  with  the  affection  which  I  have  always  felt  for  you,  praying  God  to 
better  my  pecuniary  condition,  so  that  I  may  be  enabled  before  my  death  to  show 
th;it  I  respect  the  relation  in  which  I  have  so  long  stood  to  you.  Greet  your  wife 
and  embrace  your  child  for  me,  and  believe  me  ever  your  true  friend, 

Yverdun,  17th  Feb.,  1816.  PESTALOZZI. 

In  the  letter  of  Kriisi,  just  quoted,  he  expresses  his  earnest  wish 
to  labor  for  the  education  of  the  poor.  The  same  is  found  in  the  fol- 
lowing to  his  betrothed ;  "  My  inmost  wish  is  to  be  able  to  labor  in 
some  way,  according  to  the  idea  of  our  father,  for  the  education  of 
poor  children.  We  both  know  what  poverty  is,  and  how  sorely  the 
children  of  the  poor  need  help,  that  they  may  live  worthy  and  satis- 
factory lives.  It  is  for  us  to  afford  this  help.  I  feel  it  my  vocation, 
and  feel  that  I  have  the  ability,  to  do  for  the  poor  whatever  God  has 
rendered  me  capable  of  doing.  You  must  help  me.  Female  instinct 
must  join  with  manly  strength  for  the  accomplishment  of  this  object." 

The  wish  thus  expressed  was  never  gratified.  It  was  to  be  Kriisi's 
chief  occupation  to  instruct  the  children  of  parents  in  good  circum- 
stances, until  at  a  later  period  his  situation  in  a  seminary  whose  pupils 
were  then,  and  have  been  since,  mostly  from  the  poorer  classes,  and 
who  thus  have  influence  both  upon  the  poor  and  the  rich,  at  least  per- 
mitted it  partial  gratification. 

After  his  separation  from  Pestalozzi,  Kriisi  set  about  the  establish- 
ment of  an  institution  of  his  own,  which  he  did  in  fact  afterward 
open,  with  very  little  other  help  than  his  confidence  in  God.  lie 
purchased  a  small  house,  pleasantly  situated  on  the  Orbe,  by  the 
assistance  of  a  benevolent  friend,  who  lent  him  a  considerable  sum, 
without  security,  and  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  an  increasing  number 
of  parents  send  their  children  to  him.  It  was  especially  gratifying  to 
his  patriotism  that  his  first  pupils  were  from  his  native  place  of  Gais, 
where  they  yet  live  as  respectable  citizens.  In  his  institution  he  pro- 
ceeded upon  the  Pestalozzian  plans ;  and  the  happiness  of  his  labors 
was  only  troubled  by  the  knowledge  that  his  paternal  friend  was  con- 
tinually more  closely  entangled  in  the  snares  of  the  intriguing 
Schmid,  so  that  even  Niederer  was  forced  to  leave  the  institution  in 
1817. 

Although  Kriisi  was  now  happily  established  as  father  of  a  family, 
his  first  child  was  born  in  1814,  and  teacher  of  a  prosperous  school, 
yet  another  destiny  was  before  him,  and  as  previously,  without  his 
own  cooperation. 

In  his  own  little  native  territory,  the  public-spirited  Hans  Caspar 
Zellweger  and  others,  had  conceived  the  useful  idea  of  seeing  a  canto- 
nal school  for  the  higher  education  of  native  youth,  who  were  then 


182  HERMANN  KRU3I. 

able  to  command  no  other  means  of  instruction  in  their  own  country 
than  the  ordinary  village  school.  Ilerr  Zuberbuhler  was  appointed  to 
the  charge  of  the  institution.  He  had  been  in  the  troop  of  poor 
children  who  went  with  Kriisi  to  Burgdorf ;  and  was  peculiarly  fitted 
for  his  place,  by  his  acquirements  and  by  the  mildness  of  his  charac- 
ter. But  man  proposes  and  God  disposes.  Zuberbuhler  was  soon 
seized  by  an  illness,  which  brought  him  to  the  edge  of  the  grave,  and 
which  profoundly  impressed  him  with  the  idea  of  his  own  helplessness 
and  the  danger  from  it  to  his  institution.  It  being  necessary  to 
employ  another  teacher,  he  invited  Kriisi,  who  was  now  well  known 
in  that  neighborhood  since  his  abode  near  it,  and  who  had  besides 
during  the  journey  into  Appenzell,  in  1819,  made  himself  acquainted 
with  various  influential  men  there.  Soon  after  this  journey  he  made 
another  to  Karlsruhe,  Frankfort,  Wiesbaden  and  Schnepfeuthal,  near 
Gotha,  where  he  visited  the  excellent  Gutsmuths,  who  has  done  so 
much  for  the  art  of  gymnastics.  It  was  in  1822  that  the  news  of 
Zuberbiihler's  illness  reached  him,  and  of  his  own  invitation  to  the 
place  of  director.  The  prospect  of  being  useful  to  his  fatherland  was 
irresistible  to  him  ;  and  he  was  also  influenced  by  the  promises  of  an 
assured  income  and  of  entire  freedom  in  modes  of  instruction.  The 
reputation  of  his  own  institution  was  already  great,  as  will  be  under- 
stood from  Kriisi's  own  mention  of  the  fact  as  a  rare  one,  that  even 
while  he  was  at  Yverdun,  pupils  were  sent  to  him  from  three-quarters 
of  the  world ;  some  by  French  merchants  from  Alexandria,  in  Egypt, 
and  one  from  the  capital  of  Persia,  Teheran,  800  leagues  distant. 
This  may,  however,  be  in  some  measure  ascribed  to  the  fame  of  the 
Pestalozzian  institution.  A  very  respectable  lady  from  Memel  had 
besides  taken  lodgings  in  Kriisi's  house  with  her  two  daughters,  in' 
order  to  learn  under  his  guidance  how  to  instruct  them  ;  and  the 
same  thing  happened  afterwards  with  an  English  family  at  Gais. 
Kriisi,  however,  did  not  hesitate  long,  but  accepted  Zellweger's  offer 
in  a  respectful  letter.  He  himself  went  first  alone  to  Trogen,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  his  sick  friend,  Zuberbuhler.  He  says,  "  When  I  entered 
the  room  Zuberbuhler  put  his  hands  before  his  eyes  and  burst  into 
tears.  It  relieved  his  heart  to  know  that  I  had  come  to  continue  the 
work  which  he  had  so  well  begun."  In  fact,  he  grew  better  from  that 
very  day,  and  was  soon  completely  well.  In  his  native  place  of  Gais, 
Kriisi  attached  himself,  especially  to  his  early  friend  Kern,  who  had 
traveled  to  Yverdun  to  see  him.  He  also  had  the  great  pleasure  of 
finding  his  old  friend,  the  good-natured  Tobler,  at  the  head  of  an 
institution  in  St.  Gall ;  where  afterwards  he  often  visited  him. 
Having  after  a  time  removed  thither  his  effects  and  his  family,  Kriisi 


HERMANN  KRUS1.  183 

with  his  two  assistants,  pastor  Banziger  from  Wolfhalden,  and  Egli 
from  Hittnem,  commenced  operations  in  his  new  place,  in  the  cantonal 
school  at  Trogen. 

Want  of  space  will  oblige  me  to  be  brief  in  our  account  of  Kriisi's 
stay  at  Trogen  and  Gais.  Most  readers  are  however  better  acquainted 
with  this  part  of  his  life  than  with  the  earlier.  This  earlier  period  is 
especially  valuable  for  teachers,  as  being  that  of  the  Pestalozzian 
discoveries,  and  of  the  enthusiasm  which  attended  them.  The  later 
period  is  occupied  more  particularly  with  the  further  development  of 
it.  The  institution  at  Trogen  soon  gained  reputation.  At  first,  most 
of  the  pupils  were  from  Appenzell ;  but  afterwards  quite  a  number 
came  from  the  canton  and  city  of  Zurich,  and  a  less  number  from  the 
cantons  of  Biindten,  Thurgan,  St.  Gall  and  Basle,  and  several  from 
Milan.  There  was  an  annual  exhibition,  which  was  always  interest- 
ing, both  as  showing  the  progress  of  the  pupils,  and  the  spirit  of  the 
institution,  and  from  the  addresses  made  by  the  director,  and  Herren 
Kasper  Zellweger,  and  Dean  Frei ;  most  of  which  have  also  appeared 
in  print.  The  situation  of  the  institution,  in  a  somewhat  retired 
place,  had  the  advantage  of  withdrawing  the  pupils  from  material 
pleasures  and  the  attractions  of  the  world ;  in  the  stead  of  which  were 
offered  many  enjoyments  of  a  nobler  kind  in  the  pleasure  of  nature, 
and  in  the  use  of  an  excellent  play-ground  and  garden.  Although 
none  of  the  studies,  (which  included  the  ancient  and  modern  langua- 
ges,) were  carried  so  far  as  in  many  institutions  of  a  higher  grade,  its 
results  were  very  favorable,  from  the  harmonious  labors  of  the  three 
teachers,  and  from  the  efficient  character  of  the  method  by  which 
Kriisi  aimed  always  at  increasing  the  capabilities  of  his  scholars,  and 
the  industry  of  most  of  the  pupils.  There  were,  it  is  true,  sad  excep- 
tions ;  and  if  the  teachers  did  not  succeed  with  any  such  pupils,  there 
were  often  put  under  their  charge  a  number  of  ill-taught  or  orphan 
children.  Many  were  by  Kriisi's  friendly  and  earnest  admonitions, 
caused  to  reflect,  and  brought  into  the  path  of  virtue,  no  more  to 
leave  it.  Kriisi,  who  always  himself  took  charge  of  the  instruction 
and  management  of  such  pupils,  tried  mild  methods  at  first,  as  long 
as  he  had  any  hopes  of  succeeding  with  them ;  at  lessons  he  was 
cheerful,  pursuing  every  study  with  love  and  pleasantly  encouraging 
every  smile  from  his  scholars  which  proceeded  from  honest  animation. 
He  became  severe  however  upon  the  appearance  of  any  falsehood, 
rudeness  or  immorality,  and  at  such  times  everyone  feared  the  wrath 
of  the  angry  and  troubled  father. 

In  1832,  one  of  the  places  of  assistant,  teacher  became  vacant  by 
the  death  of  Herr  pastor  Biinziger,  in  whose  stead  he  placed  Heir 


184  HERMANN   KRUSI. 

Siegfried  of  Zurich,  an  active  and  learned  man.  Meanwhile  anothei 
change  was  at  hand  in  Kriisi's  lot.  His  earnest  wish  to  devote  him- 
self to  the  training  of  teachers  was  to  be  gratified ;  although  even  in 
the  cantonal  school  he  had  done  something  in  this  direction. 

Since  the  year  1830  the  cause  of  popular  education  had  been  gain- 
ing new  life  in  many  cantons  of  Switzerland.  Funds  were  raised  in 
many  places  for  the  establishment  of  new  schools  which  were  to  be 
assisted  by  the  State ;  the  position  of  teacher  began  to  be  considered 
more  respectable,  and  to  be  better  paid  ;  although  neither  a  fair 
price  nor  this  respect  were  paid  in  more  than  a  few  places.  Clear- 
minded  men  however  saw  .that  in  order  to  the  improvement  of  popu- 
lar education,  the  teacher  must  first  be  educated ;  that  for  this 
purpose  teachers'  seminaries  must  be  established.  The  question  of 
the  choice  of  a  director  for  the  seminary  at  Zurich,  being  under  con- 
sideration, Kriisi  was  mentioned  by  various  persons,  and  particularly 
by  the  celebrated  composer  and  firm  admirer  of  Pestalozzi,  Nageli. 
Although  this  place,  as  the  sequel  showed,  was  not  the  right  one  for 
Kriisi,  he  still  considered  it  his  duty  to  think  over  the  matter,  and  to 
communicate  his  views  upon  it,  which  he  did  in  a  letter  to  his  friend 
Bodmer,  at  Zurich,  from  which  we  extract  the  following : 

The  higher  education  was  always  the  field  in  which  I  hoped  to  labor,  if  it  were 
the  will  of  God,  and  to  plant  in  it  some  good  seed  for  the  common  schools  of  my 
native  land.  Thirty  years  ago,  I  hoped  that  I  had  found  such  a  field,  in  the  Swiss 
seminary,  established  in  1802,  by  the  Helvetian  government,  under  Pestalozzi  as 
teacher.  The  act  of  mediation  broke  up  the  plan  by  disuniting  the  cantons,  and 
the  schools  for  the  common  people  with  them  ;  but  the  investigation  of  the  laws 
of  education  had  always  been  since  that  a  favorite  pursuit  with  me.  During  a 
rich  experience  at  Pestalozzi's  side,  and  during  researches  up  to  this  time  uninter- 
rupted, for  the  purpose  of  establishing  a  system  of  natural  education,  it  has  been 
my  hope  to  be  able  to  labor  efficiently  for  the  school  system  of  my  native  land. 
The  canton  of  Zurich  is  one  which  rather  than  any  other  I  would  glady  see  the 
first  in  Switzerland  in  furthering  this  most  high  and  noble  object.  But  I  ought 
not  to  hide  from  you  my  fears,  whether  : 

1.  I  can  count  upon  being  able  to  carry  out  Pestalozzi's  system  of  elementary 
education,  freely  and  without  hindrance.     In  that  I  recognize  the  only  means  of 
awakening  the  intellectual  life  of  the  teacher,  or  of  bringing  the  same  into  the 
school. 

2.  The  strict  necessity  of  cooperating  labor  would  be  regarded  in  the  choice  of 
a  second  teacher.     They  should  each  supplement  the  work  of  the  other  ;  and  this 
can  only  happen  when  their  efforts  are  put  forth  in  the  same  spirit   and  for  the 
same  object. 

3.  There  should  be  a  model  school,  which  I  consider  an  indisputable  necessity 
for  the  seminary.     It  is  not  as  a  place  of  probation  for  new  scholars  that  I  desire 
this,  but   as   affording   an   example  of  the  correct   bodily,  material,  moral  and 
religious  training  of  the  children. 

4.  Sufficient  care  should  be  taken  in  the  selection  of  a  place  for  the  seminary, 
that  the  supervision  of  its  morals  should  be  as  much  facilitated  as  possible.     The 
pupils  of  such  a  seminary  are  usually  of  an  age  most  difficult  to  manage  •  and 
their  own  moral  character  subsequently  lias  a  strong  influence  upon  that  of  their 
scholars. 

When  Kriisi  at  last  entered  upon  his  long  desired  field  of  labor,  in 
1833,  being  appointed  director  of  the  teachers'  seminary,  erected  in 


HERMANN  KRUSI.  185 

that  year,  lie  felt  the  liveliest  pleasure.  The  object  of  his  life  seemed 
to  him  now  to  stand  in  a  clear  light  before  him,  and  to  open  to  him 
the  prospect  that  his  countrymen  would  reap  the  harvest,  whose  seed 
he  had  sown  in  the  spring  of  youth,  and  watched  over  in  the  sum- 
mer. Honor  to  our  Grand  Council,  and  to  those  who  were  the  cause 
of  the  resolution,  to  spread  such  manifold  blessings  among  our  people 
and  blooming  youth.  Honor  to  them,  that  they  gave  to  poor  but 
upright  and  study-loving  youth,  the  means  of  training  themselves  for 
teachers  in  their  own  country,  and  of  learning  its  necessities,  that  they 
might  be  able  to  labor  for  their  relief.  With  gratitude  to  God,  the 
wise  disposer  of  his  fate,  Kriisi  left  the  cantonal  school,  and  proceeded 
to  Gais ;  recalling  with  emotion  the  time  forty  years  before,  when  as 
an  ignorant  youth  he  had  there  taken  up  the  profession  of  teaching, 
himself  afterward  to  become  a  teacher  of  teachers. 

He  considered  the  years  of  his  labor  in  Gais,  among  the  happiest 
of  his  life.  To  pass  the  evening  of  his  days  in  his  native  country  and 
his  native  town,  to  communicate  the  accumulated  treasures  of  his 
teachings  and  experience  to  intelligent  youth,  to  labor  surrounded  by 
his  own  family  and  with  their  aid,  and  to  benefit  so  many  pupils,  all 
this  was  the  utmost  that  he  had  ever  dared  wish  for.  This  wish  was 
however  to  be  entirely  realized.  He  conducted  five  courses,  attended 
by  sixty-four  pupils,  and  with  the  assistance  of  his  valued  friend,  pas- 
tor Weishaupt,  of  his  own  eldest  son,  and  of  Gahler,  a  graduate  of  the 
seminary  itself.  During  the  latter  course  death  overtook  him. 

A  boys'  school,  and  a  girls'  school  conducted  by  his  second 
daughter,  soon  arose  near  the  seminary,  forming  a  complete  whole, 
over  which  Kriisi's  kind  feeling  and  paternal  supervision  exercised  a 
beneficial  influence.  Hardly  ever  did  three  institutions  proceed  in 
happier  unity.  Many  pleasant  reminiscences  of  this  period  present 
themselves ;  but  the  space  is  wanting  for  them.  Kriisi's  skill  as 
educator  and  teacher  were  the  same  here  as  elsewhere.  He  used  the 
same  method,  showed  the  same  mild  disposition,  love  of  nature  and 
enthusiasm  for  every  thing  beautiful  and  good.  He  occupied  a  posi- 
tion even  higher  in  respect  of  insight  and  experience,  in  the  comple- 
tion of  his  system  of  education,  as  adapted  to  nature ;  and  a  more 
honorable  one  by  reason  of  his  old  age  and  the  gray  hairs  which 
began  to  ornament  his  temples.  But  despite  of  his  age,  whose  weak- 
nesses his  always  vigorous  health  permitted  him  to  feel  but  little,  he 
ever  preserved  the  same  freshness  of  spirit.  His  method  of  instruction 
did  not  grow  effete,  as  is  often  the  case  with  old  teachers.  He  was 
always  seeking  to  approach  his  subject  from  a  new  side  ;  and  felt  the 
same  animation  as  of  old,  at  finding  any  new  fruits  from  his  method 


186  HERMANN  KRUSI. 

or  his  labors.  His  kind  and  friendly  manners  won  all  his  pupils, 
•whether  boys  and  girls,  or  older  youth.  Nor  is  it  strange  that  all  the 
other  members  of  the  establishment  also  looked  upon  him  as  a  father. 
An  expression  of  their  love  and  respect  appeared  on  the  occasion  of  Ir's 
birthday,  which  they  made  a  day  of  festival,  with  a  simple  ceremonial 
speeches  and  songs.  Upon  such  occasions  he  was  wont  to  recall  the 
time  of  his  abode  with  Pestalozzi ;  and  his  affectionate  heart  always 
impelled  him  to  speak  in  beautifully  grateful  language  of  his  never- 
to-be-forgotten  father  and  friend,  the  originator  of  his  own  useful 
labors,  and  all  his  happiness.  The  crowning  event  of  his  happiness 
was  the  presentation  on  his  sixty-ninth  birthday,  in  1843,  the  fiftieth 
year  of  his  labors  as  a  teacher,  by  all  the  teachers  who  had  been 
instructed  by  him,  of  a  beautiful  silver  pitcher,  as  an  expression  of 
their  gratitnde.  He  looked  hopefully  upon  so  large  a  number  of  his 
pupils,  and  gave  them  his  paternal  blessing.  Two  of  his  birthday 
addresses  have  appeared  in  print. 

Until  April  of  that  year,  Kriisi  continued  to  teach  in  the  seminary 
and  connected  schools.  After  the  completion  of  his  fifth  course,  he 
had  hoped  to  be  able  to  completely  work  out  his  system  of  instruction, 
and  more  fully  to  write  his  biography ;  but  this  was  not  to  be  per- 
mitted him.  •  He  was  able  at  leisure  times  to  write  and  publish  much 
matter ;  the  last  of  these  was  a  collection  of  his  poems.  These  are 
valuable,  not  as  artistic  productions,  but  as  true  pictures  of  his  pure 
and  vivid  feeling  for  every  thing  good  and  beautiful.  The  fact  that  he 
wrote  many  of  his  songs  to  the  airs  of  his  friend,  pastor  Weishaupt, 
shows  that  he  valued  high-toned  musical  instruction.  This  love  of 
singing  remained  with  him  to  the  end  of  his  life;  and  his  face  always 
grew  animated  if  he  saw  men,  youth  and  maidens,  or  young  children, 
enjoying  either  alone  or  in  pleasant  companionship,  that  elevating 
pleasure. 

At  the  annual  parish  festival  of  1844,  the  old  man  now  seventy, 
was  present  in  Trogen,  entering  heartily  into  the  exercises  of  the 
occasion,  and  particularly,  the  powerful  chotal,  "  Alles  Lelen  stromt 
aus  Dir"  which  was  sung  by  a  thousand  men's  voices,  and  an  elo- 
quent discourse  on  common  education,  by  Landarman  Nagel.  The 
fatigue,  excitement,  and  exposure  to  the  weather,  which  was  damp 
and  cold,  were  too  much  for  his  strength,  and  in  the  evening  he  was 
ill,  and  on  the  following  day  he  was  visited  by  a  paralytic  attack, 
from  which  he  never  recovered,  but  closed  his  earthly  career  on  the 
25th  of  July,  1844.  His  funeral  was  attended  by  a  multitude  of 
mourners  from  far  and  near,  and  his  body  was  borne  to  its  last  resting 
place  in  the  churchyard  of  Gais,  by  the  pupils  of  the  seminary. 


XL   THE  GENERAL  MEANS  OF  EDUCATION, 

WITH   AN   ACCOUNT    OF   A   NEW    INSTITUTION   FOR   BOYS. 


BY  HERMANN  KRUSI. 


THE  following  "  Coup  d'ceil"  of  the  General  Means  of  Education, 
with  the  Plan  of  the  new  Institution  which  Kriisi  afterward  organ- 
ized and  managed,  was  published  at  Yverdun,  in  1818,  and  presents 
the  ideas  and  methods  of  Pestalozzi,  as  held  by  one  of  his  early 
assistants  and  avowed  disciples. 

The  principal  means  for  the  education  of  man  are  three,  viz.,  1.  Domestic 
Life.  2.  Intellectual  Education,  or  the  Culture  of  the  Mind.  3.  Religious 
Training. 

I.    DOMESTIC    LIFE. 

The  object  of  domestic  life  is  the  preservation  of  the  body  and  the  development 
of  its  powers.  It  may  therefore  be  considered  the  basis  of  physical  life. 

The  body  is  a  seed,  enveloping  the  germ  of  intellectual,  moral  and  religious  ac- 
tivity. Domestic  life  is  the  fertile  soil  in  which  this  seed  is  deposited,  and  in 
which  this  germ  is  to  expand  and  prosper. 

There  are  three  principal  relations  of  domestic  life  5  of  parents  to  children,  of 
children  to  parents,  and  of  children  to  each  other. 

In  domestic  life,  love  is  the  center  of  all  the  sentiments  and  actions.  It  is  man- 
ifested in  the  parents  by  unremitting  care  and  unbounded  self-sacrifice ;  m  the 
children,  in  return,  by  perfect  confidence  and  obedience;  and  among  brothers  and 
sisters,  by  endeavors  to  promote  each  other's  happiness.  Every  event,  almost 
every  moment,  of  domestic  life,  stimulates  the  entire  being,  body,  mind  and  soul, 
into  activity.  Beyond  the  domestic  circle,  and  the  further  we  move  from  it,  the 
more  remarkable  does  the  particular  tendency  and  the  isolated  action  of  each 
faculty  become. 

A  seminary  should  exemplify  domestic  life  in  all  its  purity.  The  teachers 
should  regard  the  pupils  as  their  children ;  the  children  should  regard  the  teach- 
ers as  parents,  and  each  other  as  brothers  and  sisters.  The  purest  love  should 
inspire  all  these  relations;  and  the  result  should  be  cares,  sacrifices,  confidence, 
obedience,  and  reciprocal  endeavors  to  aid  in  attaining  the  objects  desired. 

Such  a  domestic  life  prepares  the  child  for  mental  improvement  and  religious 
development  and  habits.  Without  it,  religion  will  gain  no  access  to  the  heart, 
and  intellectual  cultivation  will  only  be  a  means  for  satisfying  the  selfish  demands 
of  the  animal  nature.  But  with  it,  the  child  is  prepared  for  the  successful  exer- 
cise of  the  same  good  qualities  and  the  maintenance  of  the  like  relations  in  a  wider 
sphere  as  a  man,  a  citizen,  and  a  Christian. 

II.    INTELLECTUAL    EDUCATION. 

The  aim  of  this  should  be,  on  one  hand,  to  develop  the  faculties,  and  on  the 
other  to  develop  executive  power.  The  faculties  must  all  be  developed  together; 
an  end  only  to  be  attained  by  the  exercises  of  the  active  and  productive  faculties. 
In  order  to  real  development,  the  mind  must  act  of  itself;  and  moreover,  the 
active  and  productive  faculties  can  not  be  exercised  without  at  the  same  time  ex- 
ercising those  which  are  passive  and  receptive,  (namely,  those  of  comprehension 
and  retention,)  and  preparing  them  for  future  service  with  increased  advantage. 

That  alone  can  be  considered  the  elementary  means  of  developing  the  mental 


138  KRUSI,  VIEWS  AND  PLAN  OF  EDUCATION. 

faculties,  which  is  essentially  the  product  of  the  human  mind  ;  which  the  mind  of 
each  individual  can,  and  does  in  fact,  to  a  certain  degree  produce,  independent  of 
all  instruction  ;  that  which  spontaneously  exhibits  itself  in  each  department,  and 
is,  as  it  were  the  germ  of  attainment  in  it.  These  essential  productions  of  the 
human  mind  are  three;  number,  form,  and  language. 

The  ultimate  element  of  number  is  unity;  of  form,  a  line;  of  language,  ideas, 
which  are  interior,  and  sound,  which  is  exterior.  Each  of  these  three  means 
may  be  employed  in  two  different  directions;  to  develop,  on  one  hand,  the  power 
of  discerning  truth,  and  on  the  other,  that  of  discerning  beauty. 

The  faculties  of  the  individual  can  not  be  developed  without  his  acquiring,  at 
the  same  time,  a  certain  amount  of  knowledge,  and  a  certain  bodily  skill  in  the 
execution  of  what  the  mind  has  conceived ;  and  it  is  an  important  truth  that  an 
enlightened  mind  will  succeed  much  better  than  an  unenlightened  one  in  the  ac- 
quirement of  knowledge  as  well  as  of  every  kind  of  executive  ability. 

Exercises  intended  to  develop  the  faculties,  like  those  intended  to  communicate 
knowledge,  should  succeed  one  another  in  a  logical  (natural  or  necessary)  order ; 
so  that  each  shall  contain  the  germ  of  that  which  is  to  follow,  should  lead  to  it, 
and  prepare  for  it. 

The  development  of  the  principal  faculties,  and  the  acquirement  of  a  certain 
amount  of  information,  are  necessary  to  qualify  every  individual  for  his  duties  as 
a  man,  a  citizen,  and  a  Christian.  This  degree  of  development,  and  this  amount 
of  information,  constitute  the  province  of  elementary  education,  properly  so  c;i1!ed, 
which  would  be  the  same  for  all.  But  beyond  these  limits,  the  character  and  ex- 
tent of  studies  should  vary,  on  one  hand,  according  to  the  indications  of  nature, 
which  destines  individuals  by  different  capacities  for  different  callings;  and  on  the 
other  hand,  according  to  his  situation  in  life. 

In  the  acquisition  of  knowledge,  an  elementary  path  should  be  followed,  intro- 
ductory and  preparatory  to  a  scientific  method  of  study.  This  is  suited  to  the 
child,  because  it  leads  from  a  series  of  particular  facts,  it  leads  upward  to  the  dis- 
covery of  general  truths.  The  scientific  method  is  suitable  only  to  mature  and 
enlarged  minds,  proceeding  from  general  principles,  displaying  them  in  their 
whole  extent,  and  thus  arriving  at  particular  truths. 

We  shall  now  point  out  the  proper  means  of  development,  and  the  principal  ob- 
jects to  be  attained  by  them ;  afterward  considering  the  different  ages  of  child- 
hood, and  the  successive  steps  in  development  and  order  of  studies. 

First  means  of  development.     Number* 

SECTION  1.     Exercises  in  number,  with  reference  to  truth. 
A.  Mental  calculation;  to  give  intuitive  knowledge  of  numbers,  and  their  rela- 
tions :  including 

a.  exercises  on  units. 

b.  simple  fractions. 

c.  compound  fractions  or  complex  fractions. 

In  each  of  these  three  series  there  are  different  degrees,  namely, 

First,  (Preparatory,)  Numeration,  or  learning  to  count. 

Second,  Composition  of  Numbers;  e.  g.,  all  numbers  are  composed  of  units. 
All  even  numbers  are  composed  of  twos ;  all  triple  ones  of  threes,  &c.  Also, 
decomposition  of  numbers,  e.  g. ;  all  numbers  may  be  decomposed  into  units;  all 
even  numbers  into  twos ;  all  triple  ones  into  threes,  <fec.  Also,  transformations 
of  numbers.  That  is,  the  mode  of  composing  new  numbers  from  the  threes, 
twos  or  units,  coming  from  the  decomposition  of  an  old  one. 

Third,  Determinations  of  simple  relations  and  proportions. 

13.  Calculations  by  symbols.  (Figures,  letters,  &c.)  The  object  of  this  is  to 
give  an  intuitive  knowledge  of  rules,  under  which  all  operations  on  numbers  may 
be  performed,  and  also  the  ability  to  express  numbers  and  operations  by  signs. 
Including, 

a.  A  knowledge  of  the  decimal  numerical  system. 

*  We  state  the  means  of  development  in  the  following  order:  number,  form ,  language; 
because  the  development  of  number  is  simplest  and  has  fewest  applications,  those  of  form 
are  more  varied,  and  language  includes  number,  form,  and  all  human  knowledge.  When 
we  consider  the  child  at  different  ages,  we  shall,  on  the  contrary,  begin  with  language,  be- 
cause by  that,  begins  the  development  of  his  understanding. 


KRUSI,  VIEWS  AND  PLAN  OF  EDUCATION  jgg 

b.  The  four  simple  rules,  addition,  subtraction,  multiplication  and  division. 

c.  The  rule  of  three,  throughout. 

d.  Evolution  and  involution. 

e.  Algebra. 

C.  Applications  both  of  mental  and  written  calculation,  to  the  discovery  of  rela- 
tions between  numbers  and  the  attainment  of  skill  in  the  common  calculations. 
This  application  is  to  four  principal  objects,  viz., 

a.  Extent,  according  to  natural  and  arbitrary  measures. 

b.  Time  and  duration. 

c.  Weight. 

d.  Conventional  values. 

SEC.  2.  Exercises  on  number,  with  reference  to  beauty,  viz.,  Measure  in  mu- 
sic ;  the  other  musical  element  being  sound. 

Second  means  of  development.     Form. 
SEC.  1.     Exercises  in  form,  with  reference  to  truth.  (Geometry.) 

A.  Construction  of  figures  from  given  conditions. 

a.  With  lines  determined  by  points. 

b.  With  planes  determined  by  lines  and  points. 

B.  Valuation  of  lines  and  surfaces,  either  by  absolute  measures,  that   is,  by 
comparison  of  dimensions,  or  by  arbitrary  standards. 

a.  The  measure  of  one  dimension  (length,)  represented  by  a  line. 

b.  The  measure  of  two  dimensions  (length  and  breadth,)  represented  by  sur- 
face.    (Planimetry.) 

c.  The  measure  of  three  dimensions  (length,  breadth  and  thickness,)  repre- 
sented by  solids.     (Stereometry.)     The  higher  development,  of  the  same  exercises 
leads  to  trigon<fmetry  and  conic  sections. 

Together  with  the  application  of  these  exercises  to  surveying,  drafting,  &c. 
SEC.  2.     Exercises  inform,  with  reference  to  beauty.     (Drawing.) 

A.  Linear  drawing,  to  form  the  eye  and  the  hand,  and  to  practice  invention, 
under  rules  and  in  forms  agreeable  to  the  sight. 

B.  Perspective. 

a.  As  a  result  of  observation. 

b.  As  the  result  of  geometrical  and  optical  laws. 

C.  Knowledge  and  imitation  of  light  and  shade. 

D.  Progressive  exercises  in  drawing  from  nature. 

Third  means  of  development.     Language. 

SEC.  1.  The  interior  view  of  language,  i.  e.,  language  considered  chiefly  with 
reference  to  the  sense  of  the  words.  (Exercises  to  teach  children  to  make  obser- 
vations and  to  express  them  with  ease  and  correctness.) 

A.  Maternal  and  domestic  language  includes  what  relates  to  infancy  ;  what  a 
child  can  comprehend. 

a.  Exercises  in  naming  objects.     Review  whatever  the  child  has  learned  in 
actual  life,  and  ascertain  if  he  knows  and  can  name  the  objects  of  which  he  must 
speak. 

b.  Exercises  on  the  qualities  of  objects.     A  quality  is  explained   to  the  child, 
and  he  is  to  search  for  objects  possessing  it.     Both  here  and  in  every  subsequent 
exercise,  the  child  must  be  required   to  give  each  example  in  a  complete,  correct 
and  strictly  true  proposition.     Each  example  should  contain  something  of  positive 
interest. 

c.  Exercises  on  actions  and  their  relations.     An  action  is  explained  to  the  child, 
and  he  is  to  inquire  and  discover  who  does  it,  what  is  its  object ;  its  when,  where, 
wherewith,  how,  why.     In  this  practice  of  observing  every  action  with  reference 
to  the  agent,  object,  time,  place,  manner,  principles  and  intention,  we  not  only 
obtain  what  this  exercise  is  primarily  intended  to  promote,  the  development  of  the 
faculty  of  language,  and  thereby  of  general  intelligence — but  also  the  develop- 
ment in  the  child  of  a  disposition  to  explain  to  himself  all  he  does,  and  all  others 
do  ;  which  is  likely  to  have  the  happiest  effect  upon  his  judgment  and  conduct. 

B.  Social  language  ;  a  development  of  maternal  language. 

a.  Exercises  on  families  of  words.  A  radical  word  is  chosen,  and  all  its  deri- 
vatives sought  for  with  the  child.  lie  is  made  to  distinguish  with  care  the  differ- 


190  KRU'Sl,  VIEWS  AND  PLAN  OF  EDUCATION. 

ent  meanings,  proper  or  figurative,  of  each  derivative,  with  a  reference  to  the 
meaning  of  the  radical  word.  He  must  give  each  word,  and  each  meaning  of  it, 
in  a  phrase  complying  with  these  conditions,  and  those  above  laid  down  for 
propositions. 

b.  Exercises  on  synonyms. 

c.  Exercises  in  definitions. 

SEC.  2.  The  exterior  of  language ;  i.  e.,  language  with  reference  to  the  form 
of  speech. 

A.  Exterior  of  language,  with  reference  to  truth. 
First.  Verbal  language. 

a.  Composition  of  words. 

1.  With  given  sounds. 

2.  "With  given  syllables.     A  final  syllable,  or  an  initial  and  final   syllable,  is 
given  the  child,  and  he  is  to  find  words  formed  with  them ;  thus  acquiring  a 
knowledge  of  the  roots  of  words. 

3.  With  simple  words.     This  and  the  last  exercise  are  preparatory  to  exer- 
cises on  the  families  of  words. 

b.  Composition  of  phrases. 

1.  Knowledge  of  the  constituent  parts  of  phrases,  (parts  of  speech.) 

2.  Inflection  of  those  parts  of  speech  susceptible  of  it. 

3.  Construction  of  phrases  with  given  parts  of  speech. 

c.  Composition  of  periods. 

1.  Knowledge  of  the  members  of  a  period. 

2.  Combination  of  them. 

d.  Rules  for  the  construction  of  language. 
Second.  Written  language. 

Besides  the  discourse  of  the  living  voice,  which  is  the  original  and  natural 
mode  of  representing  our  ideas,  and  which  discovers  them  to  the  ear,  there  is  an 
artificial  method  which  displays  them  to  the  eye  by  means  of  signs  called  letters. 

The  desire  of  enjoying  the  ideas  of  others  thus  communicated,  and  of  being 
able,  in  like  manner,  to  communicate  our  own,  leads  to  the  study  of  written  lan- 
guage, including  the  following  exercises  : 

a.  Combination  of  the  pronunciation  of  sounds  with  the  knowledge  of  the 
signs  by  which  they  are  indicated  to  the  eye.  (Reading.) 

6.  Tracing  these  signs.    (Writing.) 

c.  Expression  of  sounds  by  them.    (Orthography.) 

d.  Knowledge  and  use  of  signs  which  indicate  the  relations  of  the  members  of 
the  phrase  or  period  composed.     (Punctuation.) 

B.  The  exterior  of  language  with  reference  to  beauty.     (Modulation,  accent, 
prosody,  versification.) 

C.  Sound,  the  external  element  of  language,  developed  in  an  independent  man- 
ner with  reference  -to  beauty  ;  constituting  one  of  the  elements  of  music. 

REMARKS.  The  study  of  the  construction  of  a  language  constitutes  grammar  ; 
whose  laws  being  correspondent  to  the  laws  of  thought,  grammar  leads  directly 
to  logic,  in  which  are  united  the  studies  of  the  interior  and  exterior  of  language. 

By  exercises  in  logic,  and  in  the  formation  of  language,  the  pupil  is  prepared 
to  compose  on  given  subjects,  and  to  study  the  rules  of  composition,  (Rhetoric.) 

The  same  exercises  will  nourish  and  develop  the  talent  for  poetry  or  eloquence, 
where  it  has  been  given  by  nature. 

Language,  as  a  production  of  the  human  mind,  and  the  expression  of  physical, 
intellectual,  and  moral  life,  should  be  universally  the  same  in  principle,  since  hu- 
man nature  is  everywhere  essentially  the  same.  But  as  the  development  of  hu- 
man faculties,  the  circumstances  of  life,  social  and  domestic  relations,  variously 
differ,  this  difference  must  have  caused  corresponding  differences  in  this  produc- 
tion of  the  mind  ;  that  is,  different  languages.  Men  associated  in  a  social  body 
have  formed  for  themselves  a  certain  tongue,  which  has  become  their  national 
language.  In  order  to  intercourse  between  different  nations,  they  must  learn 
each  other's  language ;  hence  the  study  of  foreign  tongues.  This  study  enables 
us  in  a  certain  sense  to  hold  intellectual  and  moral  intercourse  even  with  nations 
no  longer  existing  •,  i.  c.,  by  the  study  of  the  dead  languages. 

Those  whose  mother  tongue  is  derivative,  must,  in  order  to  understand  it  per- 
fectly, study  the  primitive  language  from  which  it  originated. 


KRUSI,  VIEWS  AND  PLAN  OF  EDUCATION.  jgj 

SEC.  3.     Application  of  language  to  the  acquirement  of  knowledge. 
Man  is  the  center  of  all  knowledge. 

A.  Physical  man.     Knowledge  of  the  body  ;  not  anatomical,  but  of  the  parts 
of  the  animated  body. 

First  degree.  Knowledge  of  the  parts  of  the  body. 

a.  Names  of  the  parts. 

b.  Number  of  parts  of  each  kind. 

c.  Their  situation  and  connection. 

d.  Properties  of  each. 

e.  Functions  of  each. 

/.  The. proper  care  of  each. 
Second  degree.  Knowledge  of  the  senses. 

a.  Distinctions  and  names  of  the  senses. 

b.  Their  organs. 

c.  Functions  of  these  organs. 

d.  Objects  of  these  functions. 

e.  Means  of  the  activity  of  each  organ. 

/.  Consequences  of  the  action  of  the  senses,  sensations,  disposition,  inclinations. 

REMARKS.  The  child  acquainted  with  the  physical  man,  knows  the  highest 
link  of  external  nature ;  the  most  perfect  of  organized  beings. 

Man  belongs  to  the  animal  kingdom  by  his  body  and  by  his  animal  affections. 
lie  employs  animals  for  different  purposes.  The  knowledge  of  physical  man  con- 
ducts therefore  to  that  of  the  animal  kingdom. 

Plants  are  also  organized  beings,  but  of  an  inferior  organization. 

Man  obtains  from  plants  the  greater  part  of  his  food,  his  clothing  and  his  reme- 
dies. They  feed  the  animals  he  employs.  They  adorn  his  abode.  Their  fate  in 
some  respect  resembles  his,  like  him  they  grow,  they  expand,  they  produce,  de- 
cline and  die.  The  knowledge  of  the  physical  man  conducts  therefore  to  that  of 
the  vegetable  kingdom. 

The  mineral  kingdom  forms  the  ground  of  our  abode  and  of  that  of  all  organ- 
ized bodies,  and  all  return  to  it  when  they  die.  It  supplies  us  with  salt,  many 
remedies,  and  the  greater  part  of  materials  for  our  habitations.  The  knowledge 
of  the  physical  man  conducts  then  to  that  of  the  mineral  kingdom. 

Fire,  air,  water  and  earth  compose  all  terrestrial  bodies,  wherefore  to  the  ob- 
server, without  instruments,  they  appear  as  elements.  The  preservation  and  the 
destruction  of  all  bodies  depend  upon  them.  The  constant  property  of  fire  is  to 
consume,  of  air  to  volatilize,  of  water  to  liquify,  of  earth  to  mineralize.  It  is  by 
their  equilibrium  that  bodies  are  preserved  ;  so  soon  as  one  of  the  four  overpow- 
ers the  rest,  the  body  subject  to  its  preponderating  action  must  perish.  Thus  the 
study  of  the  three  kingdoms  of  nature  leads  to  that  of  substances  commonly 
called  elements  and  this  is  a  preparation  and  an  introduction  to  the  study  of  physic 
and  chemistry. 

Physical  man,  animals,  minerals,  and  elements  belong  to  the  terrestrial  globe, 
the  knowledge  of  which  constitutes  geography.  The  study  of  the  earth,  regarded 
as  a  planet,  leads  to  astronomy. 

Man  as  a  physical  being,  stands  in  relation  with  beings  above  him,  on  a  level 
with  him  and  beneath  him.  Above  him  are  the  elements  considered  at  large  and 
the  laws  of  physical  nature.  On  his  level  are  his  fellow  creatures,  and  beneath 
him  the  individuals  of  the  three  kingdoms  of  nature,  and  the  elements  taken  in 
detail. 

B.  Intellectual  man. 

a.  Inferior  faculties  which  animals  possess  in  common  with  man.     Faculties 
of  perception  and  observation. 

b.  Intermediate    faculties.      The   faculties   of    comparison,  judgment,   and 
inference. 

c.  Superior  faculties.     The  faculty  of  seeing  abstractly,  the  essence  of  each 
ol>j  ct,  and  the  invariable  laws  of  its  nature.     The  faculty  of  believing  divine  reve- 
lation, which  unites  the  most  elevated  powers  of  the  soul  and  heart. 

Faculties  firmed  in  each  of  the  preceding  degrees,  are  : — 
The  faculty  of  devoting   the  thoughts  to  one  object,  excluding  every  other  • 
(attention.} 

The  faculty  of  creating  any  image  :  (imagination.} 


192  KRtiSI,  VIEWS  AND  PLAN  OF  EDUCATION. 

The  faculty  of  receiving  and  preserving  every  effort  of  the  understanding . 
(memory.) 

The  faculty  of  discovering  beauty  :  (taste.) 

The  study  of  the  intellectual  faculties  leads  to  the  study  of  intellectual  pro- 
ductions. 

a.  For  satisfying  intellectual  wants,  that  is  to  say,  the  essential  means  for  the 
expansion  of  the  mind  :  (Language,  number,  form.)     These  three  productions 
of  the  human  mind  have  been  already  represented  as  essential  means  for  intel- 
lectual cultivation. 

b.  For  satisfying  corporal  wants  or  to  aid  the  bodily  organs  to  serve  the  mind. 
General   knowledge  of  arts  and  trades,  of  the  materials  they  employ,  of  their 
mode  of  action  :  (technology.) 

C.  Moral  man. 

The  germ  of  morality  is  in  the  sentiments  of  love,  confidence,  gratitude.  Fruit 
of  these  sentiments :  (obedience.) 

Faculties  whose  action  springs  from  intelligence  and  sentiment :  will,  liberty. 
The  governing  and  representative  faculty  of  the  will,  is  with  the  child  the  will  of 
his  parents  ;  among  men  grown,  the  will  of  God:  (conscience.) 

Man  as  a  moral,  intellectual  and  physical  being  is  in  affinity  with  his  superiors,  his 
equals,  and  his  inferiors.  Our  relation  with  superior  beings  commences  at  our  birth  : 
those  then  above  us  are  our  father  and  mother.  Those  with  whom  we  begin  to 
be  in  connection  when  we  enter  into  civil  society  are  persons  in  authority.  The 
\  highest  points  to  which  we  can  ascend  in  our  relation  to  beings  above  us  is  as 
1  children  of  God.  The  fundamental  relation  of  all  those  with  beings  on  a  level 
w.'th  us,  is  that  of  brothers  and  sisters  in  the  interior  of  our  family.  These  rela- 
tiohs  exist  in  full  extent,  and  perfection,  when  we  regard  all  mankind  as  brethren, 
and  "ijs  forming  with  us  a  single  family.  The  fundamental  relations  of  all  those 
with  beings  beneath  us  are  those  of  a  father  and  mother  toward  their  children. 
These  relations  exist  in  all  their  perfection  and  true  dignity  when  we  are  the  rep- 
resentatives of  the  Deity,  with  those  committed  to  our  care.  The  knowledge 
of  the  relationships  of  which  we  have  just  spoken,  existing  in  domestic  life,  in 
civil  society,  and  in  religion,  the  same  conducts  to  that  of  our  rights  and  duties  as 
men,  as  citizens  and  as  Christians. 

By  exercising  a  child  in  the  study  of  himself  and  of  the  men  around  him,  his 
faculties,  the  productions  of  his  intellectual  activity,  the  principles  and  the  conse- 
quences of  his  actions,  his  relative  situation  to  all  beyond  himself,  the  rights  and 
duties  resulting  from  this  situation,  he  is  prepared  to  study  the  same  objects  in  a 
wider  sphere,  namely,  in  the  human  race,  where  appears  in  full,  all  that  the  in- 
dividual offers  in  miniature  ;  and  this  study  is  the  main  object  of  history.  The 
study  of  history  includes  three  successive  degrees. 

1st  DEGREE.  From  the  time  a  child  begins  to  study  human  nature  and  as  a 
confirmation  of  the  truths  this  study  will  discover  to  him,  he  will  be  shown  par- 
ticular and  well  chosen  facts,  taken  from  the  history  of  individuals  or  nations,  facts, 
the  circumstances  of  which  compose  a  whole,  and  form  in  his  imagination,  as  it 
were,  a  picture  after  nature.  When  the  child  shall  have  arrived  at  a  certain  de- 
gree of  development,  he  will  be  made  to  bring  home  all  these  isolated  events  to 
the  men,  or  to  the  people,  as  well  as  to  the  time  and  place,  to  which  they  belong. 
In  this  degree  the  study  of  history  serves  principally  to  feed  the  imagination,  and 
the  memory. 

2d  DEGREE.  When  the  young  man  shall  be  more  advanced  in  the  knowledge 
of  human  nature,  he  may  ascend  to  the  origin  of  the  actual  state  of  the  nations 
that  surround  him,  beginning  with  the  people  of  his  own  country.  We  may 
conduct  him  to  the  epoch  which  has  been  the  germ  of  this  actual  state,  and  seek 
with  him  the  successive  degrees  by  which  the  nation  has  progressed,  as  well  as 
the  principles  and  consequences  of  each  particular  event.  He  will  thus  learn  to 
know  the  current  order  of  history,  of  the  principal  nations  in  existence.  He  will 
then  pass  on  to  the  history  of  those  now  no  more.  In  this  degree,  the  study  of 
history  serves  principally  as  food  to  the  judgment,  inasmuch  as  it  connects  actions, 
causes,  and  their  consequences. 

3d  DEGREE.  Only  when  the  young  man  shall  have  become  more  matured, 
acquired  a  deep  knowledge  of  human  nature,  and  the  consequences  of  the  de- 
velopment of  the  individual,  is  it,  that  he  can  with  advantage  collect  the  particular 


KRUSI,  VIEWS  AND  PLAN  OF  EDUCATION.  ^93 

facts,  ai)d  the  series  of  events  which  he  has  learned  to  know,  in  order  to  form  one 
entire  whole,  and  to  study  in  mass,  the  consequences  of  the  development  of  the 
human  species  and  of  each  historical  personage,  which  is  the  essential  end  of  his- 
tory, and  the  highest  point  to  which  it  can  lead.  In  this  degree  the  study  of  his- 
tory serves  as  food  to  the  mind  in  its  most  noble  state  of  action. 

Auxiliary  means  for  the  development  of  the  faculties  and  the  acquisition  of 
knowledge.  The  study  of  what  men  have  produced,  as  true,  beautiful  and  good. 

1st.  Progressive  lessons  according  to  the  degree  of  development  the  child  has 
attained  and  the  branches  of  study  to  which  he  applies. 

2d.  Exercises  for  the  memory.  To  learn  by  heart  beautiful  pieces  of  poetry, 
eloquence  or  music. 

3d.  Exercise  of  judgment  and  of  taste:  an  examination  of  the  productions  of 
art,  to  trace  therein  the  principles  of  truth  and  beauty. 

4th.  Imitation  and  reproduction :  declamation  of  pieces  of  eloquence,  or  of 
poetry  ;  execution  of  musical  composition  ;  copying  drawings  and  paintings. 

General  means  for  rendering  the  body  of  man  able  to  serve  his  soul  and  to  ex- 
ecute its  conceptions.  (Gymnastics.) 

In  domestic  life  the  child's  body  is  the  object  of  most  tender  care.  As  the 
child  expands,  he  constantly  exercises  the  organs  of  his  senses  and  of  all  his  mem- 
bers. Care  on  the  part  of  the  parents  and  exercises  on  that  of  the  child  are  the 
double  means  of  his  preservation  and  his  first  development.  Bodily  exercise  for  a 
child  comes  in  the  form  of  plays  destined  to  amuse  and  divert  him.  At  first  they 
vary  at  almost  every  instant.  Gradually  they  become  more  steady,  and  more  serious. 

The  art  of  education  extends  and  perfects  what  life  itself  begins  and  prepares. 
Thus  what  in  its  birth  was  but  play  and  amusement  becomes  the  object  of  a  com- 
plete development,  of  which  the  very  organization  of  our  body  points  out  the  aim 
and  the  laws. 

Gymnastics  present  three  different  degrees. 

a.  Children's  plays ;  free  exercises  produced  by  unconscious  strength  and  ac- 
tivity, and  determined  by  the  impulse  of  the  mind  and  the  accidental  circum- 
stances of  life. 

b.  Progressive  and  regulated  exercises  of  the  limbs.     Gymnastics  properly  so 
called. 

c.  Exercises  preparatory  to  occupations  in  active  life,  and  to  the  employment 
the  pupil  is  to  embrace  :  Gymnastics  of  Industry. 

By  the  gymnastic  exercises,  directed  toward  the  essential  object  of  developing 
the  physical  faculties  in  harmony  with  the  intellectual  and  moral,  and  by  care  to 
preserve  the  strength  and  purity  of  the  organs,  the  body  may  attain  its  true  des- 
tination, namely  to  serve  the  rnind  by  executing  its  conceptions. 

Different  ages  of  pi/pils. 

These  ages  are  fixed  from  a  general  view  of  children.  In  different  individuals 
nature  accelerates  or  retards  the  progress  of  development,  so  that  some  enter  ear- 
lier, some  later  into  each  period.  There  are  also  individuals  who  develop  more 
rapidly  in  some  directions  than  in  others.  We  must  therefore,  take  care  that  tJ/e 
backward  faculties  are  not  neglected,  which  would  destroy  in  the  individual, 
the  harmony  of  human  nature. 

A.  First  age  ;  until  five  years  old. 

During  this  first  age,  the  child  is  exclusively  the  object  of  maternal  and  pa- 
ternal care.  He  only  receives  instruction  occasionally ;  each  moment,  each  cir- 
cu instance  may  furnish  a  means  to  fix  his  attention  upon  the  objects  which  sur- 
round him,  and  to  teach  him  to  observe  them,  to  express  his  observations  and  to 
act  upon  them  as  far  as  his  age  will  allow.  The  development  which  the  child 
may  acquire  in  this  first  period  is  of  the  greatest  future  importance.  Every 
teacher  will  find  a  wide  difference  between  the  child  whose  parents  have  trained 
him  with  tenderness  and  judgment  and  him  who  has  been  in  the  first  stage  aban- 
doned to  himself,  or  what  is  worse,  ill-directed  or  ill-associated. 

B.  Second  age  •,  from  five  to  ten  years. 

It  is  at  this  period  only  that  a  regular  course  of  instruction  should  begin.  At 
first  this  should  be  but  a"  recapitulation  of  all  the  child  has  learned  by  the  habits 
of  life,  with  the  simple  difference  that  the  objects  of  the  exercises  should  no  longer 
be  determined  by  accident,  but  fixed  in  one  plan,  adapted  to  the  intellectual  wants 

13 


1  94  KRtfSI,  VIEWS  AND  PLAN  OF  EDUCATION. 

of  the  child.  Domestic  life  thus  furnishes,  during  the  first  period,  the  germ* 
which  a  course  of  instruction  ought  to  develop,  and  in  a  great  measure  decides  ita 
success. 

The  following  exercises  properly  belong  to  this  age. 

1 .  Maternal  and  domestic  language. 

2.  Exterior  of  language  :  composition  of  words,  reading,  writing,  spelling. 
We  must  always  take  care  that   the  knowledge  of  the  interior  of  language 

keeps  a  little  before  the  exterior. 

3.  Elementary  exercises  in  singing. 

4.  Mental  arithmetic  with  units. 

5.  Construction  of  figures  according  to  given  conditions,  and  linear  drawing. 

6.  Application  of  language  and  the  acquisition  of  knowledge ;  knowledge  of 
the  human  body. 

There  are  other  exercises  which  may  be  begun  at  this  period,  but  which  do  not 
properly  belong  to  it ;  for  which  reason  we  put  off  the  mention  of  them  to  the 
following  period. 

C.  Third  age  •  from  ten  to  fifteen. 

1 .  Interior  of  language :  social  language. 

2.  Exterior  of  language :  composition  of  phrases  and  of  periods,  orthography, 
punctuation. 

3.  Continuation  of  singing  exercises. 

4.  Mental  arithmetic  with  simple  and  with  compound  fractions. 
Written  arithmetic  to  the  rule  of  three,  in  its  full  extent,  inclusively. 

5.  Geometry  properly  so  called  :  relation  of  forms,  as  far  as,  and  including 
stereometry. 

Drawing :  perspective,  shades,  drawing  from  nature. 

6.  Application  of  language  to  the  acquisition  of  knowledge. 

a.  Continuation  of  the  study  of  the  physical  man :  senses,  sensations,  inclina- 
tions, passions. 

b.  Intellectual  man. 

c.  Moral  man. 

d.  Knowledge  of  such  natural  objects  in  the  three  kingdoms  as  by  a  complete 
system  of  positive  features,  may  serve  as  a  representative  of  a  series  of  other  ob- 
jects of  like  character. 

e.  Knowledge  of  the  elements  as  far  as  it  can  be  acquired  by  observation,  with- 
out the  aid  of  physical  and  chemical  apparatus. 

f.  Geography. 

f.  Technology  and  notices  of  the  principal  inventions. 
.  History,  1st  degree. 

7.  Application  of  arithmetic  to  bulk :  to  duration,  to  weight,  and  to  the  con- 
ventional value  of  objects. 

D.  Fourth  age ;  from  fifteen  to  eighteen  or  twenty. 

Language.  Continuation  of  language.  Rules  for  the  construction  of  lan- 
guage. Logic. 

Compositions  on  given  subjects.  Rhetoric.  Continuation  of  singing  exer- 
cises. Arithmetic,  mental  and  written  ;  evolution  of  powers ;  extraction  of  roots. 
Algebra,  geometry,  trigonometry  and  conic  sections. 

Drawing.     Continuation  of  perspective,  shades,  and  drawing  from  nature. 

Application  of  language  to  the  acquirement  of  knowledge. 

Continuation  of  the  study  of  the  intellectual  and  moral  man. 

Relations  of  the  physical,  intellectual  and  moral  man  to  other  beings. 

Continuation  of  the  study  of  the  three  kingdoms  of  nature. 

Elementary  course  of  physic  and  chemistry. 

Geography,  mathematics  and  histoiy. 

History.  2d  degree. 

Application  of  arithmetic  and  geometry  united,  to  agriculture,  drafting,  etc. 
Observations  on  the  study  of  foreign  languages. 

In  each  stage  of  development  it  is  important  that  the  mother  tongue  should 
always  keep  a  little  before  all  foreign  languages,  that  the  child  should  learn  noth- 
ing in  these  he  does  not  already  know  in  that,  so  as  to  leave  no  deficiency  in  the 
mother  tongue.  If  any  study  were  pursued  by  the  child  in  a  foreign  language 
only,  such  language  would  in  this  department  take  the  lead ;  the  child  would  find 


KRUSI,  VIEWS  AND  PLAN  OF  EDUCATION.  }Q5 

it  difficult  to  express  himself  in  his  own  tongue  on  subjects  learned  by  means  of 
a  strange  one.  On  the  contrary,  the  study  of  all  foreign  languages  should  serve 
to  make  the  mother  tongue  better  known. 

In  a  seminary  where 'different  pupils  speak  different  languages,  these  must  go 
hand  in  hand,  and  every  branch  of  instruction  must  be  cultivated  in  them  both. 

Hence  results  this  advantage,  that  the  pupil  learns  by  intuition  the  meaning 
of  the  words  of  the  language  which  is  foreign  to  him,  that  is  to  say  he  every  in- 
stant sees  this  meaning/and  does  not  learn  it  solely  from  translation  and  memory. 
This  mode  of  employijjtg  two  languages  singularly  facilitates  the  communication 
of  ideas  in  them  both.;  It  also  gives  the  advantage  of  comparing  them,  and 
thereby  teaches  their  actual  relations  and  difference  both  as  to  ground  and  form. 
A  knowledge  of  the  genius,  the  peculiarities  and  the  shades  of  meaning  of  each 
are  the  fruits  of  this  cdrnpafison. 

Dead  languages  are  More  foreign  to  the  mind  of  a  child,  and  more  difficult  for 
him.  The  study  of  th$m.  should  be  based  upon  a  sufficient  development  of  the 
living  languages,  and  afrove  all  of  the  native  language  ;  without  which  they  re- 
main dead  in  the  mind,^vwthout  real  fruit.  This  study  should  not  therefore  be- 
gin before  the  third  pentkL;;  and  should  not  occupy  all  the  pupils,  but  only  those 
destined  to  walk  in  the  paths  of  science.  Those  otherwise  to  be  disposed  of,  may 
employ  their  time  and  tfteir  endeavors  to  much  greater  advantage. 

III.    RELIGION.       THE    SOUL    AND    THE    FINAL    END    OF    ALL    EDUCATION. 

Third  means  for  the  cultivation  of  man. 

As  the  body  is  vivified  by  the  soul,  so  domestic,  social  and  intellectual  life  are 
animated  and  ennobled  by  religion.  Without  it  the  activity  of  man  in  each  of 
these  three  spheres,  b?(s;;ouly  a  terrestrial  object  and  falls  short  of  its  true  dignity 
and  destiny. 

Thus  the  relations  of  Father  and  mother  are  ennobled  and  sanctified  when  the 
father  and  the  mother  consider  themselves,  in  respect  to  their  children,  as  the 
representatives  of  Goethe  common  father  of  all. 

The  state  of  the  child  is  ennobled  and  sanctified,  when  we  not  only  feel  our- 
selves children  of  mortal  parents,  but  at  the  same  time  children  of  God,  destined 
to  rise  to  perfection  evi&n  as  our  heavenly  father  is  perfect. 

The  state  of  brothep:£nd  sisters  is  also  ennobled  and  sanctified  when  we  re- 
cognise all  mankind  a& brothers  and  sisters  and  members  of  one  same  family. 

The  endeavors  we  make  to  develop  our  intellectual  faculties  and  to  gain  a 
knowledge  of  truth,  are  sanctified  when  we  acknowledge  God  as  the  fountain  of 
all  wisdom  and  the  eternal  source  of  all  virtue  and  goodness.  All  earthly  life  is 
sanctified  when  made  a^preparation  for  one  heavenly  and  immortal. 

The  specific  means  which  education  may  adopt  to  promote  in  the  child  a  reli- 
gious life  are : 

1.  Pious  exercises,  the  principal  of  which  is  prayer. 

2.  Religious  conversations,  in  which  we  take  advantage  of  the  circumstances 
and  events  of  life  to  raise  the  soul  of  the  child  from  what  is  earthly  and  fugitive, 
to  what  is  heavenly  andreverlasting. 

3.  The  study  of  sacr-ed  history  and  important  passages  of  Holy  Writ,  chosen 
with  care,  according  to;Jthe  degree  of  development  the  child  may  have  attained, 
and  which,  committed  to  memory,  are  germs  which  religious  instruction  and  the 
events  of  life  will  hereafter  develop. 

4.  Religious  instruction  properly  so  called ;  or  the  regular  explanation  of  the 
doctrine  of  our  SaviourVv  This  instruction  should  only  take  place  in  the  4th  period 
of  development  5  and  the  chief  aim  of  every  preceding  period  should  be  to  pre- 
pare for  it.     Jt  should  .close  the  child's  career  and  become  his  support  in  the  hour 
of  trial,  his  guide  to  direct  his  steps  to  the  highest  point  of  perfection  of  which  his 
nature  is  susceptible.  .. 

All  education  should:  proceed  from  man  and  lead  to  God.  Man  should  en- 
deavor to  live  in  God'and  for  God,  and  to  devote  to  HIM  all  his  terrestrial  and 
intellectual  existence..;, To  this,  domestic  and  social  life,  exterior  nature,  and  ;  11 
the  circumstances  through  which  he  passes  here  below,  should  conduct  him. 
But  it  is  only  through  the  influence  of  God,  that  all  these  can  produce  this  effect; 
the  sublime  truths  of  the  gospel  can  alone  lead  us  into  that  way  which  leads  to 
that  heavenly  life  which  is  our  true  destination. 


196  KRUSI,  VIEWS  AND  PLAN  OF  EDUCATION. 


PROSPECTUS    OF    AN    ESTABLISHMENT   FOR    THE    EDUCATION   OF    BOYS. 

From  the  earliest  age  at  which  they  can  receive  regular  instruction,  to  that  in  which  they 
should  enter  into  a  scientific  pur  suit,  a  profession,  or  business. 

This  establishment  was  commenced  three  years  ago.  While  I  was  yet  with  Mr. 
Pestalozzi,  working  with  him  in  his  undertaking  and  teaching  in  his  institution,  two 
pupils  were  unexpectedly  committed  to  my  particular  care  and  direction.  These  were 
shortly  followed  by  a  third,  their  relation.  From  that  time  a  combination  of  circum- 
stances independent  of  my  will  induced  me  to  leave  the  institution  1  had  assisted  to 
form  and  direct  during  sixteen  years.  I  should  above  all  things  have  preferred,  aftei 
this  separation,  to  have  labored  to  form  teachers  for  the  people,  taking  poor  children 
equal  to  the  office.  Seeing  the  accomplishment  of  this  desire  beyond  my  reach,  1  ap- 
plied myself  to  measures  more  within  my  ability,  and  such  as  appeared  appointed  by 
Providence.  I  extended  my  sphere  of  activity,  receiving  such  new  pupils  as  were 
intrusted  to  my  care  unsought  by  me. 

This  train  of  circumstances  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  rny  desire  to  remain 
attached  to  Messrs.  Niederer  and  Naef,  (during  many  years  my  friends  and  companions 
in  labor,)  and  with  them  to  devote  my  life  to  education,  induced  me  again  to  choose 
Yverdun  for  the  place  of  my  intended  labor,  and  for  the  gradual  growth  of  my  rising 
institution. 

Our  union  enables  us  to  find  means  and  men  competent  in  every  respect  to  insure 
the  prosperity  of  our  three  institutions,  (that  of  Mr.  Naef  for  the  deaf  and  dumb,  that 
of  Mr.  Niederer  for  youth  of  either  sex,  and  mine.)  Mr.  Nabholz,  whose  sentiments 
and  purposes  resemble  our  own,  will  enter  my  institution  as  assistant.  Mr.  Steiner, 
a  pupil  of  Pestalozzi,  will  teach  mathematics,  in  which  his  talents  and  success  afford 
the  brightest  hopes.  Keeping  up  friendly  intercourse  with  Mr.  Brousson,  principal  of 
the  College  of  Yverdun  and  with  other  respectable  men,  I  receive  from  them,  in  the 
different  branches  of  instruction,  assistance  of  importance  to  me,  and  on  the  continu- 
ance of  which  1  can  depend.  In  my  former  situation  the  frequent  changes  which  oc- 
curred among  my  companions  in  labor  often  pained  me  on  account  of  its  influence 
on  the  success  of  that  undertaking  to  which  I  devoted  my  life. 

To  avoid  a  like  inconvenience,  which  must  inevitably  produce  every  kind  of  discord, 
and  expose  an  institution  subject  to  it,  to  great  dangers,  we  shall  choose  our  assistants 
and  fellow-laborers  with  the  greatest  circumspection. 

The  views  which  serve  as  the  foundation  of  my  enterprise  are  the  same  with  those 
I  have  helped  to  develop  under  the  paternal  direction  of  Pestalozzi.  All  that  I  have 
found  in  many  years'  observation,  both  by  my  own  experience  and  that  with  my  pupils, 
to  be  true  and  conducive  to  the  entire  culture  of  man,  I  shall  strive  by  unremitting  efforts 
to  develop  more  and  more  in  myself  and  to  apply  in  a  natural  manner  for  the  advantage 
of  rny  pupils.* 

My  first  object  is,  to  establish  in  my  institution  a  true  domestic  life ;  that  all  the  pu- 
pils may  be  considered  as  members  of  one  family,  and  that  thus  all  those  sentiments 
and  all  those  virtues  which  are  necessary  to  a  happy  existence,  and  which  render  the 
connections  of  life  pure  and  sweet,  may  be  developed. 

Without  this  foundation,  I  believe  that  the  blessing  of  God  is  wanting  on  every 
means  of  education  whatever. 

The  extent  of  knowledge  and  executive  ability  which  the  pupils  will  acquire  is  in 
part  the  same  for  all,  and  in  part  influenced  by  individual  dispositions  and  destinations, 
it  is  the  same  for  all  inasmuch  as  it  embraces  the  development  of  the  faculties  and 
powers  most  essential  to  human  nature.  Thus  far,  the  method  has  acquired  an  inva- 
riable basis,  inasmuch  as  it  has  established  language,  number  and  form,  as  produc- 
tions of  the  human  mind  and  as  the  universal  means  by  which  the  mind  should  be 
developed. 

The  acquisition  of  knowledge  and  executive  skill  as  a  result  of  this  development  are 
secured  either  by  means  of  exercises  in  language,  number  and  form,  or  connect  them- 
selves with  these  in  a  very  simple  manner.  Thus,  with  the  study  of  numbers  is  con- 
nected mercantile  and  scientific  calculation.  The  study  of  form  and  size  leads  to  the 
art  of  drawing  and  writing.  The  exercises  in  the  mother  tongue  as  a  means  of  de- 
veloping the  mind  of  the  child,  conduct  to  the  study  of  foreign  languages  and  to  the 
knowledge  of  objects,  which  the  tongue  serves  to  sejze  and  to  define.  Music  as  a 
combined  production  of  two  elements  is  allied  to  language  by  tone,  and  to  number  by 
measure. 

In  the  circle  of  human  knowledge,  man  as  a  compound  being  is  the  center  of  a 
double  world  :  of  an  exterior  and  physical  world  to  which  the  three  kingdoms  of  nature 

*  I  have  endeavored  in  the  Coup  d'oeil  which  precedes  this  announcement,  to  state  the 
means  of  education  such  as  1  conceive  them  to  be.  This  exposition  will  be  the  model  and 
the  basis  of  my  vvork.  It  is  evident  that  these  views  and  these  means  can  not  all  be  devel- 
oped by  a  single  man  or  a  single  institution.  It  is  a  task  in  which  all  the  friends  of  education 
mutit  cooperate. 


KRUSI,  VIEWS  AND  PLAN  OF  EDUCATION.  |Q^ 

belong,  and  also  the  earth  which  contains  them  and  all  exterior  nature  ;  and  of  an  interior 
world,  intellectual  "and  moral,  which,  proceeding  from  the  faculties  and  the  powers  or 
our  nature,  contains  all  the  whole  sphere  of  the  connections  of  man,  and  of  his  du- 
ties toward  himself,  toward  his  fellow  creatures,  and  toward  God.  The  child  should 
be  as  familiar  with  this  interior  world  as  with  the  exterior  and  physical  world. 

Intellectual  cultivation  should  be  accompanied  by  cultivation  of  the  heart.  The 
physical  powers  should  also  be  developed,  in  order  that  the  body  may  be  able  to  per- 
form what  the  mind  has  conceived  and  the  will  has  resolved.  Bodily  exercise  in  this 
respect  possesses  an  essential  and  incontestible  value.  The  mind  and  the  heart  stand 
in  need  of  the  body  in  all  the  actions  of  life.  The  operations  of  the  soul  are  hamm- 
ered in  proportion  as  the  body  is  neglected,  or  unequal  to  execute  its  orders. 

In  regard  to  the  admission  and  residence  of  pupils  in  my  school,  I  desire  -parents 
who  propose  to  intrust  their  children  to  my  care,  to  fully  weigh  the  following  consid- 
erations. 

The  two  most  decisive  epochs  in  education  are  that  of  early  infancy  under  the 
mother's  care,  and  that  where  the  youth  enters  into  manhood.  If  these  two  periods  are 
successfully  passed,  it  may  be  considered  that  the  education  has  succeeded.  If  either 
has  been  neglected  or  ill-directed,  the  man  feels  it  during  his  whole  life.  The  age  of 
boyhood  being  the  intermediate  period  between  early  infancy  and  youth,  is  of  unmis- 
takable importance,  as  the  development  of  the  first  period,  and  the  germ  of  the  third ;  but 
in  no  case  does  this  age  influence  either  dccisivp.li/,  by  repairing  previous  defects  or  neg- 
lects, or  by  insuring  what  shallfollow.  In  the  first  age  the  child  belongs  by  preference 
to  its  mother,  to  be  taken  care  of  by  her;  in  the  second  age  it  belongs  by  preference  to 
its  father,  to  be  directed  by  him.  As  a  young  man,  a  new  existence  opens  to  him,  he 
ceases  to  be  the  child  of  his  parents  ;  and  becomes  their  friend.  The  son,  at  maturity, 
becomes  the  tender,  intimate  and  faithful  friend  of  his  parents,  as  he  was,  in  his  mi- 
nority, their  amiable,  docile,  and  faithful  child. 

With  regard  to  exterior  life,  the  child  must  sooner  or  later  become  an  orphan,  and 
when  this  misfortune  befalls  him  in  his  minority,  society  provides  that  a  guardian  shall 
supply  the  place  of  parents  until  he  comes  of  age.  For  the  interior  life,  no  one  can  sup- 
ply this  place  for  him.  Nothing  but  intellectual  and  moral  strength  in  the  child  himself, 
and  strengthened  by  that  wisdom  and  that  love  which  proceed  from  God,  can  bring  us 
near  to  HIM  and  supply  the  place  of  the  wisdom  and  the  love  of  our  father  and  mother. 
When  the  young  man  has  attained  this  point,  it  is  only  as  a  friend  that  he  remains  the 
child  of  his  parents.  If  he  is  not  brought  up  in  these  noble  dispositions,  an  unhappy 
consequence  follows;  the  bonds  of  nature  are  broken  on  his  coming  of  age.  because 
these  bonds  were  only  of  force  with  respect  to  physical  life ;  and  the  child,  who,  in  this 
Jirst  friendship — in  this  friendship  whose  objects  are  nearest  to  him — has  not  supported  the 
trial  of  fidelity,  will  never  bear  the  test  for  any  being  upon  earth. 

Therefore  it  is  that  this  period  in  education  is  so  important,  so  decisive,  and  so  ex- 
acting more  than  any  other.  On  the  one  hand  it  requires  the  purity  and  tender  affec- 
tion of  domestic  life,  and  on  the  other  side,  solid  and  wholesome  food  for  the  mind. 

In  this  exigency  a  means  presents  itself  which  ought  to  be  the  keystone  in  the  edu- 
cation of  the  child,  the  resting  place  for  the  passage  from  minority  to  majority,  the 
foundation  of  a  new  life ;  a  means  raised  above  every  other,  namely,  Religion — the 
revelation  of  all  that  is  divine  in  man  manifested  by  Jesus  Christ.  The  young  man, 
who  in  body,  as  a  mortal,  ceases  to  be  a  child,  should  become  a  new  child  in  soul, 
and  as  an  immortal  being.  After  entering  this  new  state,  he  ought  in  general  to  cease 
to  be  the  pupil  of  men,  to  raise  himself  above  their  direction,  and  to  become  the  pupil 
of  himself,  that  is  to  say,  of  that  wisdom  and  that  love  which  comes  to  us  from  God  and 
raises  -us  to  him. 

So  long  as  a  man  has  not  attained  this  point,  his  education  is  incomplete.  The  aim 
of  education  is  to  enable  him  to  reach  it. 

To  strive  incessantly  toward  this  object,  is  the  task  of  the  institution  here  announced. 

YVERDUN,  Pestalozzi's  birthday,  1818. 


JOHANNES  BUSS. 


JOHANNES  Buss,  an  assistant  teacher  of  Pestalozzi,  especially  in 
teaching  drawing,  was  born  at  Tubingen,  in  Wurteniburg,  in  1776. 
His  father  held  a  subordinate  place  about  the  theological  school, 
and  thus  secured  for  the  son  better  opportunities  of  early  instruction 
than  are  usually  enjoyed  by  persons  in  his  condition.  In  the' gram- 
mar school  he  acquired,  before  he  was  twelve  years  old,  considerable 
knowledge  in  Greek  and  Hebrew,  logic  and  rhetoric.1  His  father  ap- 
plied for  his  gratuitous  reception  in  an  institution  recently  established 
by  the  reigning  Duke  Charles,  at  Stuttgardt^  -but  this  was  refused; 
and  about  the  same  time  an  edict  was  promulgated,  prohibiting  chil- 
dren of  the  middle  and  lower  class  from  embracing  a  literary  career. 
The  youth,  although  disappointed,  did  not  despair,  but  applied  him- 
self to  the  study  of  drawing.  This  he  was  obliged  to  give  up  from 
the  want  of  means,  and  at  the  age  of  sixteen  he  was  apprenticed  to 
a  bookbinder — an  art  by  which  he  hoped  yet  tg-Vget  the  means  for  a 
literary  career. 

We  continue  the  narrative,  in  Buss's  own  language,  down  to  his 
connection  with  Pestalozzi. 

Having  served  my  apprenticeship,  I  began  to  travel-}  but  growing  melan- 
choly and  sickly,  I  was  obliged  to  return  home;  and  -Here  I  made  a  new  at- 
tempt to  get  rid  of  my  trade,  hoping  that  the  little  knowledge  of  music  I  had 
retained  would  enable  me  to  earn  my  bread  in  Switzerland;' 

With  this  hope  I  went  to  Basel ;  but  my  circumstances,  and  the  events  of 
my  past  life,  had  given  me  .  a  degree  of  shyness,  which  foiled  me  in  all  my  at- 
tempts at  money-getting.  I  had  not  the  courage  to  ,|ell  the  people  all  that  a 
man  must  say  to  obtain  from  them  what  I  wanted.  A+friend  of  mine,  who  met 
me  by  accident  at  that  moment  of  embarrassment,  reconciled  me  for  a  short 
time  to  the  bookbinding  business;  I  entered  once  more : -in to  a  workshop;  but 
the  very  first  day  I  sat  down  in  it,  I  began  again  1J&'-  indulge  myself  in  my 
dreams,  thinking  it  still  possible  that  a  better  chance  might  turn  up  for  me  in 
time,  although  I  was  quite  aware  that  I  had  lost  too  much  of  my  skill  in  music 
and  drawing  to  rely  upon  those  two  attainments  for  an  independent  subsist- 
ence. 1  consequently  changed  my  place,  in  order  to  gain  time  for  practice  in 
both,  and  I  was  lucky  enough  to  get  two  spare  hours  a  day,  and  to  form  ac- 
quaintances, which  assisted  me  in  my  progress. 

Among  others  I  was  introduced  to  Tobler,  who  soon  perceived  the  gloom  by 
which  I  was  oppressed;  and  having  ascertained  the  cause,  was  desirous  of  as- 
sisting me  in  gaining  a  more  favorable  position.  "When,  therefore,  Kriisi  in- 
formed him  that  Pestalozzi  stood  in  need  of  a  drawing  and  music-master  for  the 
full  organization  of  his  new  method,  his  thoughts  immediately  turned  toward  me. 

I  was,  as  I  have  before  stated,  fully  aware  of  my  deficiencies;  and  the  hope 
that  I  should  meet  with  an  opportunity  of  improving  myself,  had  no  small 
share  in  my  determination  to  go  to  Burgdorf,  in  spite  of  the  warnings  which  I 


JOHANNES    BUSS. 


199 


received  from  several  quarters  against  forming  any  connection  with  Pestalozzi, 
who,  they  told  me,  was  half  mad,  and  knew  not  himself  what  he  was  about. 
In  proof  of  this  assertion  they  related  various  stories ;  as,  for  instance,  that  he 
once  came  to  13asel,  having  his  shoes  tied  with  straw,  because  he  had  given 
his  silver  buckles  to  a  "beggar  on  the  road.  I  had  read  "Leonard  and  Ger- 
trude" and  had,  therefore,  little  doubt  about  the  buckles;  but  that  he  was  mad, 
that  I  questioned.  In  short,  I  was  determined  to  try.  I  went  to  Burgclorf.  I 
can  not  describe  the  feelings  I  had  at  our  first  interview.  He  came  down  from 
an  upper  room  with  Ziemssen,  who  was  just  then  on  a  visit  with  him,  his  stock- 
ings hanging  down  about  his  heels,  and  his  coat  covered  with  dust.  His  whole 
appearance  was  so  miserable  that  I  was  inclined  to  pity  him,  and  yet  there  was 
in  his  expression  something  so  great,  that  I  viewed  him  with  astonishment  and 
veneration.  This,  then,  was  Pestalozzi?  His  benevolence,  the  cordial  recep- 
tion he  gave  to  me,  a  perfect  stranger,  his  unpretending  simplicity,  and  the  di- 
lapidated condition  in  which  he  stood  before  me ;  the  whole  man,  taken  together, 
impressed  me  most  powerfully.  I  was  his  in  one  instant.  No  man  had  ever 
so  sought  my  heart ;  but  none,  likewise,  has  ever  so  fully  won  my  confidence. 

The  following  morning  I  entered  his  school :  and,  at  first,  I  confess  I  saw  in  it 
nothing  but  apparent  disorder,  and  an  uncomfortable  bustle.  But  I  had  heard 
Ziemssen  express  himself,  the  day  before,  with  great  warmth  concerning  Pestalozzi's 
plan  5  my  attention  was  excited,  and,  conquering  in  myself  the  first  impression,  I 
endeavored  to  watch  the  thing  more  closely.  It  was  not  long  before  I  discovered 
some  of  the  advantages  of  the  new  method.  At  first  I  thought  the  children  were 
detained  too  long  at  one  point ;  but  I  was  soon  reconciled  to  this,  when  I  saw  the 
perfection  which  they  attained  in  their  first  exercises,  and  the  advantages  which  it 
insured  to  them  in  their  further  progress.  I  now  perceived,  for  the  first  time,  the 
disadvantages  under  which  I  myself  had  labored,  in  consequence  of  the  incoher- 
ent and  desultory  manner  in  which  I  had  been  taught  in  my  boyhood  5  and  I  be- 
gan to  think  that,  if  I  had  been  kept  to  the  first  elements  with  similar  persever- 
ance, I  should  have  been  able  afterward  to  help  myself,  and  thus  to  escape  all 
the  sufferings  and  melancholy  which  I  had  endured. 

This  notion  of  mine  perfectly  agrees  with  Pestalozzi's  principle,  that  by  his 
method  men  are  to  be  enabled  to  help  themselves,  since  there  is  no  one,  as  he 
says,  in  God's  wide  world,  that  is  willing  or  able  to  help  them.  I  shuddered 
when  I  read  this  passage  for  the  first  time  in  "  Leonard  and  Gertrude."  But,  alas, 
the  experience  of  my  life  has  taught  me  that,  unless  a  man  be  able  to  help  him- 
self, there  is  actually  no  one,  in  God's  wide  world,  able  or  willing  to  help  him. 
I  now  saw  quite  clearly  that  my  inability  to  pursue  the  plan  of  rny  younger  years 
in  an  independent  manner,  arose  from  the  superficiality  with  which  I  had  been 
taught,  and  which  had  prevented  me  from  attaining  that  degree  of  intrinsic  pow- 
er of  which  I  stood  in  need.  I  had  learned  an  art,  but  I  was  ignorant  of  the 
basis  on  which  it  rested ;  and  now  that  I  was  called  on  to  apply  it,  in  a  manner 
consistent  with  its  nature,  I  found  myself  utterly  at  a  loss  to  know  what  that  na- 
ture was.  With  all  the  attention  and  zeal  I  brought  to  the  subject,  I  could  not 
understand  the  peculiar  view  which  Pestalozzi  took  of  drawing,  and  I  could  not 
at  all  make  out  his  meaning,  when  he  told  me  that  lines,  angles,  and  curves 
were  the  basis  of  drawing.  By  way  of  explanation,  he  added,  that  in  this,  as  in 
all  other  matters,  the  human  mind  must  be  led  from  indistinct  intuitions  to  clear 
ideas.  But  I  had  no  idea,  whatever,  how  this  was  to  be  done  by  drawing.  He 
said  it  must  be  done  by  dividing  the  square  and  the  curve,  by  distinguishing  their 
simple  elements,  and  comparing  them  with  each  other.  I  now  tried  to  find  out 
what  these  simple  elements  were,  but  I  knew  not  how  to  get  at  simple  elements  5 
and,  in  endeavoring  to  reach  them,  I  drew  an  endless  variety  of  figures,  which, 
it  is  true,  might  be  called  simple,  in  a  certain  sense,  but  which  were  utterly  unfit, 
nevertheless,  to  illustrate  the  elementary  laws  which  Pestalozzi  was  in  search  of. 
Unfortunately  he  was  himself  no  proficient  either  in  writing  or  drawing  ;  though, 
in  a  manner  to  me  inconceivable,  he  had  carried  his  children  pretty  fnr  in  both 
these  attainments.  In  short,  months  passed  away  before  I  understood  what  was  to 
be  done  with  the  elementary  lines  which  he  put  down  for  me.  At  last  I  began 
to  suspect  that  I  ought  to  know  less  than  I  did  know  ;  or  that,  at  least.  T  must 
throw  my  knowledge,  as  it  were,  overboard,  in  order  to  descend  to  those  simple 
elements  by  which  I  saw  him  produce  such  powerful,  and,  to  me,  unattainable 


200 


JOHANNES    BUSS. 


effects.  My  difficulties  were  immense.  But  the  constant  observation  of  the 
progress  which  his  children  made  in  dwelling  perseveringly  on  his  "  elements," 
brought  my  mind,  at  last,  to  maturity  on  that  point ;  I  did  violence  to  myself, 
and,  abandoning  my  preconceived  notions  of  the  subject,  I  endeavored  to  view 
all  things  in  the  light  of  those  same  elements  ;  till,  at  last,  having  reached  the 
point  of  simplicity,  I  found  it  easy,  in  the  course  of  a  few  days,  to  draw  up  my 
sketch  of  an  alphabet  of  forms. 

Whatever  my  eyes  glanced  upon  from  that  moment,  I  saw  between  lines  which 
determined  its  outline.  Hitherto  I  had  never  separated  the  outline  from  the  ob- 
ject, in  my  imagination  ;  now  I  perceived  the  outline  invariably  as  distinct  from 
the  object,  as  a  measurable  form,  the  slightest  deviation  from  which  I  could  easily 
ascertain.  But  I  now  fell  into  another  extreme.  Before  I  had  seen  nothing  but 
objects;  now  I  saw  nothing  but  lines;  and  I  imagined  that  children  must  be  ex- 
ercised on  these  lines  exclusively,  in  every  branch  of  drawing,  before  real  objects 
were  to  be  placed  before  them  for  imitation,  or  even  for  comparison.  But  Pesta- 
lozzi  viewed  his  drawing-lessons  in  connection  with  the  whole  of  his  method,  and 
with  nature,  who  will  not  allow  any  branch  of  art  to  remain  isolated  in  the  hu- 
man mind.  His  intention  was,  from  the  first  beginning,  to  lay  before  the  child 
two  distinct  series  of  figures,  of  which  one  should  be  contained  in  his  book  for  the 
earliest  infancy,  and  the  other  should  furnish  practical  illustrations  for  a  course  of 
lessons  on  abstract  forms.  The  first  were  intended  to  form,  as  it  were,  a  supple- 
ment to  nature,  in  giving  children  an  intuitive  knowledge  of  things  and  their 
names.  The  second  was  calculated  to  combine  the  practical  application  of  art 
with  the  theoretical  knowledge  of  its  laws,  by  connecting  the  perception  of  ab- 
stract forms  with  an  intuitive  examination  of  the  objects  that  fitted  into  those 
forms.  In  this  manner,  he  meant  to  bring  nature  and  art  to  bear  upon  each  other ; 
so  that,  as  soon  as  the  children  were  able  to  draw  a  line,  or  a  figure,  real  objects 
should  be  presented  to  them,  so  exactly  corresponding  as  to  render  their  imitation 
a  mere  repetition  of  the  same  exercise  which  they  had  before  performed  in  the 
abstract. 

I  was  afraid  lest,  by  giving  the  child  real  objects,  his  perception  of  the  outline 
should  be  disturbed  ;  but  Pestalozzi  did  not  wish  to  cultivate  any  power  against 
nature,  and  he  said,  concerning  this  subject :  "  Nature  gives  no  lines,  but  only  ob- 
jects to  the  child  ;  the  lines  must  be  given  to  the  child,  that  he  may  view  the 
objects  correctly;  but  to  take  the  objects  from  him,  in  order  to  make  him  see 
lines  only,  would  be  exceedingly  wrong." 

But  there  was  another  difficulty  in  which  I  had  entangled  myself.  Pestalozzi 
told  me  that  children  must  learn  to  read  those  outlines  like  so  many  words,  by 
denominating  the  different  parts,  the  lines,  angles,  and  curves,  with  different  let- 
ters, so  that  their  combinations  may  be  as  easily  expressed  in  language,  arid  put 
down  in  writing,  as  any  other  word  by  the  composition  of  its  letters.  In  this  man- 
ner an  alphabet  of  forms  was  to  be  established  and  a  technical  language  created, 
by  means  of  which  the  nicest  distinctions  of  the  different  forms  might  be  clearly 
brought  before  the  mind,  and  appropriately  expressed  in  words  calculated  to  illus- 
trate them  by  the  difference  of  the  formation. 

Pestalozzi  persevered  until  I  understood  him.  I  saw  that  I  gave  him  a  great 
deal  of  trouble,  and  I  was  sorry  for  it.  It  was,  however,  unavoidable  ;  and  but  for 
his  patience  we  should  never  have  made  an  alphabet  of  forms. 

At  last  I  succeeded.  I  began  by  the  letter  A.  I  showed  him  what  I  had 
done  ;  he  approved  of  it,  and  now  one  thing  followed  from  the  other  without  any 
difficulty.  In  fact,  the  figures  being  once  completed,  the  whole  was  done  ;  but  I 
was  unable  to  see  all  that  I  had  done ;  T  had  neither  the  power  of  expressing 
myself  clearly  on  the  subject,  nor  the  capability  of  understanding  the  expression 
of  others. 

To  remedy  the  defect  under  which  I  labored  is,  however,  one  of  the  most  es- 
sential objects  of  Pestalozzi's  method,  which  connects  language  throughout  with 
the  knowledge  gained  from  nature  by  the  assistance  of  art,  and  supplies  the  pupil 
at  every  stage  of  instruction  with  appropriate  expressions  for  what  he  has  learned. 

It  was  an  observation  which  we  all  of  us  made  upon  ourselves,  that  we  were 
unable  to  give  a  distinct  and  accurate  account,  even  of  those  things  of  which  we 
had  a  clear  and  comprehensive  idea.  Pestaloz/i  himself,  when  explaining  his 
views  on  education,  had  great  difficulties  in  finding  always  the  precise  term  which 
would  convey  his  meaning. 


JOHANNES    BUSS.  201 

It  was  this  want  of  precise  language,  in  fact,  which  caused  me  to  remain  so 
long  in  the  dark  concerning  the  nature  of  my  task,  and  prevented  me  from  per- 
ceiving what  Pestalozzi's  views  were  on  that  subject. 

After  I  had  overcome  all  these  difficulties,  my  progress  was  rapid,  and  I  felt 
every  day  more  the  advantages  of  his  method.  1  saw  how  much  may  be  done 
by  precision  and  clearness  of  language  on  the  subject  of  instruction,  whether  it 
be  one  of  nature  or  of  art,  to  assist  the  mind  in  forming  a  correct  notion  of  forms 
and  their  proportions,  and  in  distinguishing  them  clearly  from  each  other ;  and  I 
could  not,  therefore,  but  be  aware  of  the  paramount  importance  of  enlightened 
and  careful  instruction  in  the  signs  which  language  supplies  for  the  designation  of 
things,  their  properties,  relations,  and  distinctions.  Experience  confirmed  the 
conjecture  which  I  had  formed,  that  children  taught  upon  this  method  would 
make  more  accurate  distinctions,  than  even  men  accustomed,  from  early  life,  to 
measuring  and  drawing  ;  and  the  progress  which  many  of  our  children  made 
was  beyond  comparison,  greater  than  that  which  is  commonly  obtained  in  schools. 

It  is  very  true,  I  saw  the  whole  of  Pestalozzi's  method  only  through  the  me- 
dium, as  it  were,  of  my  peculiar  branch  of  instruction,  and  judged  of  its  value 
by  the  effects  which  it  produced  in  particular  application  to  my  art.  But  my 
anxiety  to  enter  fully  into  the  spirit  of  it,  led  me,  in  spite  of  that  limitation,  by 
degrees  to  investigate  the  bearing  which  it  had  upon  other  branches;  and,  at  last, 
assisted  by  the  practical  illustrations  which  drawing  afforded  rne,  I  succeeded  in 
comprehending  Pestalozzi's  views  on  language  and  arithmetic.  I  saw  that,  as  it 
was  possible  to  proceed  from  lines  to  angles,  from  angles  to  figures,  and  from  fig- 
ures to  real  objects,  in  the  art  of  drawing,  so  it  must  likewise  be  possible,  in  lan- 
guage, to  proceed  by  degrees  from  sounds  to  words,  and  from  words  to  sentences, 
and  thereby  lead  the  child  to  equal  clearness  on  that  subject.  As  regards  arith- 
metic, I  was  laboring  under  the  same  error  as  before,  with  reference  to  the  intu- 
ition of  objects.  As  I  looked  at  these  without  reference  to  their  outline,  so  did  I 
view  numbers  without  a  clear  notion  of  the  real  value  or  contents  of  each.  Now, 
on  the  contrary,  I  acquired  a  distinct  and  intuitive  idea  of  the  extent  of  each 
number,  and  I  perceived,  at  the  same  time,  the  progress  which  the  children  made 
in  this  branch  of  instruction.  At  length,  it  seemed  to  me  a  point  of  essential 
importance,  that  the  knowledge  and  practice  of  the  elements  of  every  art  should 
be  founded  upon  number,  form,  and  language.  This  led  me  to  understand  the 
difficulties  with  which  I  had  so  long  been  struggling  in  my  own  department.  I 
saw  how  I  had  stuck  fast  from  want  of  clearness  of  language,  and  how  I  was 
impeded  by  a  confused  idea  of  number.  It  seemed  very  obvious  that  the  child 
can  not  imagine,  with  any  degree  of  precision,  the  division  of  any  figure  into  its 
component  parts,  unless  he  have  a  clear  idea  of  the  number  of  those  parts;  that, 
for  instance,  if  he  is  in  the  dark  as  to  the  extent  of  the  number  four,  he  must  be 
equally  in  the  dark  on  the  division  of  any  figure  into  four  parts. 

I  felt  my  own  mind  daily  clearing  up  ;  I  saw  that  what  I  had  attained  had  in 
itself  a  power,  as  it  were,  to  carry  me  further  and  further  ;  and  applying  this 
experience  to  the  child,  I  came  to  the  conviction,  that -the  effect  of  Pestalozzi's 
method  is,  to  render  every  individual  intellectually  independent,  by  awakening 
and  strengthening  in  him  the  power  of  advancing  by  himself  in  every  branch  of 
Knowledge.  It  seemed  like  a  great  wheel,  which,  if  once  set  going,  would  con- 
tinue to  turn  round  of  itself.  Nor  did  it  appear  so  to  me  only.  Hundreds  came, 
and  saw,  and  said  :  ''  It  can  not  fail."  Poor  ignorant  men  and  women  said  : 
u  Why,  that's  what  I  can  do  myself  at  home  with  my  child  !  "  And  they  were 
right.  The  whole  of  the  method  is  mere  play  for  any  one  who  has  laid  hold  of 
the  first  elements,  and  has  followed  its  progress  sufficiently  to  be  secured  against 
the  danger  of  straying  into  those  circuitous  paths  which  lead  man  away  from  the 
foundation  of  nature,  on  which  alone  all  his  knowledge  and  art  can  securely  rest, 
and  from  which  he  can  not  depart  without  entangling  himself  in  endless  and 
inextricable  difficulties.  Nature  herself  demands  nothing  of  us  but  what  is  easy, 
provided  we  seek  it  in  the  right  way,  and  under  her  guidance. 

One  word  more,  and  1  have  done.  My  acquaintance  with  Pestalo/zi's  method 
has  in  a  great  measure  restored  to  me  the  cheerfulness  and  energy  of  my  younger 
days,  and  has  rekindled  in  my  bosom  those  hopes  of  improvement  for  myself  and 
my  species,  which  I  had  for  a  long  time  esteemed  as  vain  dreams,  and  castaway, 
in  opposition  to  the  voice  of  my  own  heart. 


JOSEPH  SCHMID. 

JOSEPH  SCHMID,  one  of  the  best  known  of  Pestalozzi's  assistants, 
was  a  native  of  Tyrol,  and,  when  he  entered  the  institution  as  a 
scholar,  was  a  Catholic,  and  excessively  ignorant.  He  possessed  great 
native  talent  for  mathematics,  and  this,  together  with  his  habits  of 
industry,  order,  and  thoroughness,  raised  him  in  time  to  the  rank  of 
the  most  influential  of  Pestalozzi's  teachers.  Although  his  talents  as 
a  mathematician,  and  still  more  his  great  business  capacity,  rendered 
him  quite  indispensable  as  a  member  of  the  institution,  yet  his  con- 
duct, and  his  demeanor  in  his  intercourse  with  his  fellow-instructors, 
became  so  unsatisfactory  to  them,  that  in  1810  he  was  dismissed  from 
the  institution.  He  soon  after  established  himself  as  teacher  of  a 
school  at  Bregenz,  and  vindicated  himself  by  publishing  a  work  en- 
titled "My  Experience  and  Ideas  on  Education,  Institutions,  and 
Schools." 

But  the  absence  of  his  financial  guidance  brought  the  institution 
to  such  a  point  of  confusion,  that,  notwithstanding  the  deep  ill-feeling 
against  him  on  the  part  of  the  teachers,  he  was  recalled  five  years 
afterward,  in  1815.  From  this  time  onward,  he  was  in  opposition 
to  all  the  remaining  teachers,  except  Pestalozzi  himself,  who  unflinch- 
ingly stood  his  friend  to  the  day  of  his  death.  But  the  dislike  of  the 
other  teachers  against  him,  although  unable  to  eject  him  from  the 
institution,  resulted,  with  other  causes,  in  its  ruin.  Twelve  of  the 
teachers,  including  Blochmann,  Kriisi,  Stern,  Ramsauer,  Ackermann, 
&c.,  left  at  one  time  ;  having  drawn  up  and  signed  a  document  attrib- 
uting their  departure  to  the  faults  and  misconduct  of  Schmicl.  Others 
were  appointed  in  their  places,  but  the  day  of  the  institution  was 
over,  and  it  gradually  sank  into  entire  decay. 

Schmid  now  conceived  the  idea  of  an  edition  of  the  complete  works 
of  Pestalozzi,  and  himself  made  the  arrangements  with  the  publisher, 
Cotta,  and  applied  for  subscriptions  in  all  quarters,  with  so  much  vigor 
and  success  that  the  net  profits  of  the  undertaking  to  Pestalozzi  were 
50,000  francs.  He  also  appears  to  have  assisted  in  revising  and 
rewriting  portions  of  the  works ;  which,  however,  do  not  contain  a 
number  of  important  compositions  by  Pestalozzi,  while  some  of 
Sclimid's  own,  embodying  them,  are  published  among  them. 

Schmid's  personal  appearance  was  somewhat  striking.     He  was 


JOSEPH  SCIIM1D. 


203 


muscular  and  strong,  of  dark  complexion,  and  keen  black  eyes,  with, 
a  harsh  voice,  and  a  sharp  look.  Of  his  life,  subsequent  to  the  year 
18l7y  we  have  no  precise  information.  We  give  below  Festal ozzi's 
own  estimate  of  Schmid,  as  published  in  1825  : — 

"  I  must  trace  from  its  source  the  powers  which  seemed  the  only 
ones  capable  of  holding  us  together  in  these  sad  circumstances. 
While  we  were  at  Burgdorf,  in  the  beginning  of  the  evil  consequences 
of  our  unnatural  union  there,  there  came  to  us,  from  the  mountains 
of  Tyrol,  a  lad  showing  not  a  single  trace  of  the  exaggerated  refine- 
ment of  our  time,  but  endowed  with  inward  gifts  whose  depth  and 
subsequent,  use  were  anticipated  by  none — not  even  by  myself.  But 
some  unexplained  feeling  drew  me  toward  him  on  the  first  instant  of 
his  appearance  in  our  midst,  as  I  had  never  been  drawn  to  any  other 
pupil.  His  characteristics  were,  from  the  first,  quiet,  efficient  activity, 
circumscribed  within  himself;  great  religious  fervency,  after  the  Cath- 
olic persuasion,  and  of  a  simple  but  powerful  kind ;  and  eager  efforts 
after  every  attainment  in  learning  or  wisdom  which  he  judged  neces- 
sary. In  the  exercises  in  elementary  means  of  education,  mental  and 
practical,  he  soon  surpassed  all  his  teachers,  and  soon  even  became 
the  instructor  of  those  who  a  little  before  had  looked  upon  him  as  the 
most  uncultivated  child  they  had  ever  seen  in  our  institution.  This 
son  of  nature — who  even  at  this  day  owes  nothing  to  the  culture  of 
the  time,  and,  in  all  that  he  has  accomplished,  is  as  ignorant  of  the 
usual  outward  forms  of  every  intellectual  science  as  he  was  the  day 
he  came  from  the  mountains  into  our  midst,  with  his  Ave  Maria  in 
his  mouth  and  his  beads  in  his  pocket,  but  with  a  powerful  intellect, 
a  peaceful  heart,  and  courage  ready  for  every  struggle — soon  excited, 
by  his  whole  conduct  amongst  us,  extraordinary  expectations ;  and, 
on  my  part,  that  close  friendship  which  I  felt  for  him  almost  as 
strongly  in  the  first  hour  of  our  meeting. 

Schmid  passed  the  years  of  his  youth  in  these  quiet  but  active 
labors;  and,  recognized  at  his  first  appearance  as  an  extraordinary 
child  of  nature,  his  mind,  developed  in  the  power  of  thinking  and 
managing  by  many  experiences  of  practical  life,  could  not  fail  soon  to 
recognize  the  unnaturalness  and  weakness  of  our  organization,  and  of 
all  our  doings  and  efforts.  As  soon  as  the  influence  of  his  preponder- 
ating powers  had  insured  him  a  recognized  right  to  do  it,  he  did  not 
delay  to  declare  himself,  with  Tyrolian  open-heartedness,  against  the 
presumption  of  the  one-sided  and  narrow  views  of  the  tablet-phan- 
tasts,  and  of  the  equally  narrow  and  one-sided  as  well  as  superficial 
praises  of  our  methods  of  intellectual  instruction ;  and,  most  of  all, 
against  the  continually-increasing  inefficiency,  love  of  mere  amuse- 
ment, disorder,  insubordination,  and  neglect  of  positive  duties  there- 


204  JOSEPH  SCIIMID. 

with  connected.  He  required,  without  any  exception,  of  each  and 
all  of  the  members  of  our  association,  from  morning  to  evening,  the 
thorough  performance  of  all  the  duties  properly  pertaining  to  the 
members  of  a  well-ordered  household.  He  was  equally  clear  and 
distinct  in  rejecting  every  boast  of  the  elevation  and  importance  of 
our  principles  and  efforts,  which  was  not  proved  amongst  us  by  actual 
facts,  as  idle  babble ;  and  was  accustomed  to  ask,  when  any  thing  of 
this  kind  was  said, 'How  is  this  put  into  practice?  What  use  is 
made  of  it? '  And,  if  the  answer  did  not  please  him,  he  would  hear 
no  more  of  the  subject.  This  conduct,  however,  very  soon  and  very 
generally  gave  very  great  offense." — Fortunes  of  My  Life,  pp.  22  to 
24,  34,  35. 


JOHN  GEORGE  TOBLEB. 

JOHN  GEORGE  TOBLER,  an  educator  of  the  Pestalozzian  school, 
was  born  at  Trbgen,  in  the  canton  of  Appenzell-Ausserrhoden,  in 
Switzerland,  October  17,  1769.  He  lost  his  mother  in  his  third  year, 
and  his  father  in  his  tenth.  His  education  was  very  inadequate,  as 
was  usual  in  those  times.  His  disposition  inclined  him  to  become  a 
preacher.  Want  of  means,  however,  prevented  him  until  his  twenty- 
third  year,  when  with  a  very  insufficient  preparation  he  entered  the 
University  of  Basle.  With  all  the  other  qualifications  for  becoming 
a  valuable  preacher  and  catechist,  his  memory  for  words  failed  him  in 
respect  to  the  acquisition  of  foreign  languages.  This  defect  decided 
him  entirely  to  give  up  entering  for  the  examination  as  candidate. 
He  was  to  find  a  greater  sphere  of  usefulness  in  another  career.  He 
exchanged  his  theological  studies  for  the  practical  employment  of  a 
tutor  and  teacher. 

In  1799,  he  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  a  school  for  the  female 
children  of  emigrants  at  Basle.  An  invitation  from  Pestalozzi  brought 
him  to  Burgdorf  in  May,  1800.  He  there  became  the  friend  of 
Buss  and  Kriisi,  and  married,  and  after  a  short  disagreement  with 
Pestalozzi,  labored  with  him  for  seven  years  at  Munchen  Buchsee  and 
Yverdun.  Circumstances  brought  him  to  Miihlhausen,  where,  besides 
other  exertions,  he  founded  his  labor-school,  which  quickly  increased 
so  as  to  contain  from  four  to  six  hundred  scholars,  but  which  came  to 
an  end  in  1 8 1 1,  in  the  midst  of  a  prosperous  career.  Tobler  returned  to 
Basle,  and  set  about  collecting  his  pedagogical  views  and  experiences, 
and  preparing  for  the  press  a  geography  upon  Pestalozzi's  principles. 

His  pecuniary  needs,  however,  obliging  him  to  seek  another  situa- 
tion, he  obtained  a  place  as  teacher  in  a  private  institution  in  Glarus. 
On  New  Year's  day  of  1817,  together  with  his  fellow -teachers,  he 
was  dismissed,  by  reason  of  the  famine.  He  immediately  turned  to 
his  profession  of  tutor,  and  held  a  situation  for  three  entire  years,  in 
an  eminent  family  of  the  neighborhood.  The  children  being  after- 
ward sent  to  a  newly  erected  cantonal  school,  he  went  to  Arbon  on 
the  Lake  of  Constance,  with  the  design  of  erecting  there,  instead  of 
a  school,  a  superior  orphan-house  ;  but  the  place  was  too  small.  A 
year  afterward  he  went  to  St.  Gall.  Here,  the  real  star  of  his  peda 


206  JOHN  GEORGE  TOBLER. 

gogical  career  shone  out  upon  him.  That  place  deserves  gratitude 
for  having  afforded  him  ten  years  together,  of  free  and  unimpeded 
room  for  the  display  of  his  talents  as  teacher  and  educator.  One  of 
the  noblest  fruits  of  this  time,  was  the  education  of  a  son  to  follow 
his  father's  honorable  example.  In  1831,  this  son  was  able  to 
graduate  from  school,  and  in  1836,  he  left  St.  Gall,  and  accompanied 
Niederer  to.  Yverdun,  and  then  to  Geneva,  at  both  of  which  places^he 
was  at  the  head  of  institutions  of  his  own ;  and  was  also  of  very 
great  service  to  Niederer's  school  for  girls.  At  present  he  fills  the 
place  of  director  of  a  cantonal  school  at  Trogen. 

Tobler  passed  his  latter  years  at  Basle,  in  part  with  his  second  son, 
the  principal  of  a  boys1  school  at  Nyon ;  where  he  died  in  his  seventy- 
fourth  year,  after  a  short  sickness,  Aug.  10,  1843.  The  last  months 
of  his  life  were  rendered  happy  by  an  elevated  self-consciousness,  by 
the  pleasant  prospect  of  ending  his  days  at  his  native  place,  as  he 
desired,  and  by  incessant  and  active  occupation  in  setting  in  order  his 
writings  and  his  domestic  affairs.  His  inner  life  was  as  happy  and 
elevated  above  earthly  things  as  the  evening  sun,  amidst  the  eternal 
blue  of  heaven. 

After  this  short  sketch  of  Tobler's  life,  varied  and  struggling  as  it 
was,  although  not  fateful,  we  may  devote  a  few  words  to  his  intellectual 
peculiarities,  his  rank  as  a  teacher,  and  his  services  to  humanity  and 
human  culture. 

His  moral  and  religious  nature  was  his  predominating  trait ;  the 
key-tone  of  his  mind.  His  father,  who  filled  the  place  of  both  father 
and  mother  to  his  sensitive  nature,  inspired  these  sentiments  into  him 
while  yet  a  child.  The  maxim  "Seek  first  the  kingdom  of  God  (or 
what  was  with  him  its  equivalent,  the  sphere  of  attainments  accord- 
ing to  Christ)  and  its  righteousness,  and  all  other  things  shall  be 
added  unto  you,"  was  his  rule  of  life ;  and  in  his  teaching  and  his 
example,  afforded  him  constant  assistance  in  answering  such  questions 
as  arose  during  his  labors  for  moral  improvement. 

As  soon  as  he  could  write,  he  commenced  the  practice  of  taking 
down  sermons  and  catechizings ;  and  thus  acquired  great  facility  in 
his  German  style,  and  a  mastery  of  analytic  methods  which  afterward 
stood  him  in  good  stead  by  enabling  him  to  deliver  extemporaneous 
sermons  and  addresses  to  children,  and  to  compose  excellent  sketches 
of  sermons.  His  popular  and  instructive  style  occasioned  various 
congregations,"  after  hearing  him,  to  desire  him  for  a  pastor.  Efis 
morning  and  evening  prayers  with  pupils  and  children  were  exceedingly 
simple,  pathetic,  clear,  and  impressive.  In  moments  of  higher  excite- 
ment, the  very  spirit  of  the  Apostle  John's  epistles  spoke  through 


JOHN  GEORGE  TOBLER.  g()7 

him.  His  religious  instruction  and  other  Sabbath  exercises  exerted  a 
profound  influence  upon  the  neglected  children  of  the  manufacturing 
school  at  Miihlhausen. 

While  a  student  at  Basle,  Tobler  exercised  a  predominating  influ- 
ence over  numbers  of  his  fellow  students,  in  inciting  them  to  industry, 
and  inspiring  them  with  the  idea  of  the  honorableness  of  their  future 
calling.  He  was  one  of  the  founders  there  of  a  society  for  intel- 
lectual improvement;  an  enterprise  which  later  events  rendered  pro- 
phetical. A  very  remarkable  difference  was  to  be  observed  between 
the  after  lives  of  those  who  were  his  friends,  and  others. 

While  he  was  teacher  and  director  of  the  female  school  at  Basle, 
he  followed  in  general  the  doctrines  of  Basedow,  Campe,  and  Salzmann. 
His  method  of  teaching  was  substantially  that  which  has  since  been 
named  the  Socratic.  By  strictly  adhering  to  this  method  he  endeavored 
to  call  into  life  and  to  develop  the  minds  and  hearts  of  his  scholars, 
not  however  in  the  ancient  Greek  spirit,  but  in  that  of  Christ;  and 
thus  he  proceeded  until  the  man  appeared  upon  the  stage,  who  gave 
an  entirely  new  meaning  to  the  word  Education,  who  completely  ap- 
prehended the  entire  subjects  of  education  and  instruction,  who  estab- 
lished them  as  an  independent,  art  and  science,  and  made  an  epoch  in 
their  history.  To  Pestalozzi  Tobler  adhered,  and  was  afterward  his 
steady  disciple. 

Tobler  fully  comprehended  Pestalozzi's  idea  and  method,  in  their 
general  collective  significance  for  humanity  and  education.  Their 
individual  principle  separately  was  more  difficult  of  comprehension  to 
him.  He  understood  it  to  be  Spontaneous  Activity.  This,  however, 
he  considered  only  as  a  receiving  and  ivorking  faculty,  to  be  developed 
by  perception  and  drilling  (i.  e.  Receptivity  and  Spontaneity  ;  Nature 
and  Capacity ;  Faculties ;)  and  in  this  opinion  he  was  quite  correct, 
as  well  as  in  regard  to  the  relation  of  these  faculties  to  the  three  sub- 
jects of  instruction,  nature,  man,  and  God.  But  Pestalozzi  had  deter- 
mined a  third  sub-division  of  this  Spontaneous  Activity,  before  un- 
recognized, and  had  distinguished  within  it  the  elements  pertaining 
to  the  intellect  and  to  the  feelings,  viz.,  that  of  the  productive  spon- 
taneous activity  of  the  moral  and  intellectual  powers,  (the  talents  ?) 
In  this  consists  the  peculiarity  and  importance  of  Pestalozzi's  dis- 
coveries in  method,  and  of  the  discoveries  and  the  revolution  thus 
originated.  It  is  by  operating  according  to  this  distinction  that  the 
progress  of  the  development  and  general  training  of  human  nature  is 
assured,  and  the  real  intellectual  and  moral  emancipation  of  the 
schools  substantially  established. 

During  the  first  period  of  Pestalozzi's  institution,  Tobler  took  part 


208  JOHN  GEORGE  TOBLER. 

with  all  in  everything  as  a  beloved  teacher  and  pupil.  In  a  general 
activity  of  this  kind  consisted  what  might  be  called  Pestalozzi's 
jubilee.  Then,  all  the  teachers  were  pupils,  and  all  the  pupils  teach- 
ers ;  so  far  as  they  brought  forward  independent  matter  of  their  own, 
and  furnished  results  of  their  own  inner  activity.  After  a  time,  how- 
ever, the  necessity  of  the  separation  and  ordering  of  different  depart- 
ments of  instruction  and  drilling,  rendered  it  necessary  for  Tobler  to 
select  some  special  department  of  labor;  and  he  selected  the  real 
branches  ;  and  among  them,  that  of  elementary  geography.  He  estab- 
lished the  principles  of  this  study  by  reference  to  the  actual  surface 
of  earth,  and  to  the  pupil's  own  sphere  of  vision,  with  a  success 
which  entitles  him  to  the  name  of  the  father  of  the  new  method  in 
geography.  Ritter,  who  knew  his  labors,  and  proceeded  onward 
from  their  termination,  passed  beyond  the  sphere  of  education,  by  a 
giant  stride  forward  in  his  science. 

Tobler's  personal  relations  with  Pestalozzi  were  neither  fortunate 
nor  enduring.  Pestalozzi  had  not  the  faculty  of  determining  the 
proper  place  for  each  of  his  assistants,  and  of  laying  out  for  each  of 
them  his  appointed  work.  He  was  neither  an  organizer  nor  adminis- 
trator ;  and  he  regarded  Tobler's  wishes  in  this  respect  as  mere  as- 
sumption and  weakness.  Tobler  could  not  bring  out  the  real  value 
of  his  views,  without  their  complete  display  in  actual  operation. 
Whoever  could  at  once  put  a  matter  into  a  distinctly  practical  form 
could  in  Pestalozzi's  eyes  do  everything ;  and  whoever  fell  at  all  short 
of  this,  nothing.  Tobler,  therefore,  wholly  absorbed  in  the  business 
of  elementarizing,  did  nothing  to  please  or  satisfy  Pestalozzi.  The 
elementarizing  of  instruction,  and  of  the  so-called  "real  branches," 
required  too  much  at  once ;  namely,  the  investigation  and  harmonious 
arrangement  of  the  elements  and  laws  of  two  spheres,  viz.,  that  of 
children's  powers,  and  that  of  the  proposed  subject-matter  of  them. 
Pestalozzi  required  from  Tobler,  simple,  rapid  and  immediate  results 
from  this  investigation,  even  when  the  indispensable  materials  for 
them  were  wanting.  Both  Tobler  and  Pestalozzi,  moreover,  were  in 
the  habit  of  very  plain  speaking ;  and  as  husband  and  father,  Tobler 
could  not  devote  his  entire  life  to  Pestalozzi. 

This  false  position  of  Tobler's  gradually  became  that  of  the  teach- 
ers and  pupils  of  the  institution.     And  Pestalozzi's  dispos^'n-i   *•< 
opinions  passed   more  and  more  under  the  influence  of  a  single  o  - 
of  the  assistant  teachers  (Schmid.) 

At  Miinchen  Buchsee,  Tobler  was  a  promoter  of  the  separation  b 
tween  Pestalozzi  and  von  Fellenberg.  Cooperation  with  the  latt 
was  possible  only  on  condition  of  complete  submission  to  his  authority; 


JOHN  GEORGE  TOBLER.  200 

a  claim  which  von  Fellenberg  made  on  the  ground  of  his  social  posi- 
tion. But  the  views  of  the  two  men  were  too  radically  different ;  of 
the  world,  of  men,  and  of  pedagogy.  It  is  true  that  pedagogical  ly, 
von  Fellenberg  proceeded  on  Pestalozzi's  principles ;  but  it  was  upon 
those  principles  as  he  entertained  them  when  he  wrote  Leonard  and 
Gertrude;  when  he  considered  the  common  school  as  a  valuable  in- 
strumentality for  the  training  by  society  of  its  needed  members ;  i.  e., 
for  education  to  agriculture,  manufacturing,  and  trades.  This  view 
was  in  harmony  with  the  caste-spirit  of  society ;  "  The  individual  was 
not  considered  as  a  moral  person,  and  society  subordinated  to  him  as 
to  a  superior  being,  but  he  was  placed  quite  below  it."  Pestalozzi  had, 
while  at  Stanz  and  Burgdorf,  risen  very  far  above  this  view.  He  had 
turned  about,  let  go  his  consideration  of  mere  purposes,  and  had  laid 
hold  upon  the  principle  of  personal  exterior  independence ;  not  merely 
as  a  negative,  but  as  a  positive  fact.  This  starting  point  von  Fellen- 
berg did  not  recognize;  and  Tobler,  therefore,  could  not  agree  with 
him.  The  true  reason  why  no  union  between  von  Fellenberg  and 
Pestalozzi  and  the  Pestalozzians  never  took  place  is,  therefore,  not  to  be 
sought  amongst  any  accidental  circumstances,  but  in  their  radical  op- 
position of  views. 

In  Muhlhausen,  and  afterward  in  Glarus,  Tobler  established  new 
schools.  His  want  of  adaptedness  to  the  demands  of  the  times  upon 
the  teacher  and  educator  here  came  sharply  out.  He  experienced,  by 
the  severe  lesson  of  falling  into  poverty  and  want,  the  truth,  that  no 
one,  even  if  possessed  of  a  lofty  new  truth,  strong  by  nature,  and 
really  deserving  of  confidence  and  support,  can  unpunished  oppose 
himself  to  the  tendencies  of  the  age.  Every  new  truth  has  its  martyrs  ; 
and  a  pedagogical  truth  as  well  as  others. 

His  real  excellence,  and  his  maturest,  he  showed  at  St.  Gall,  while 
director  and  center  of  his  school  there,  as  educator  and  instructor  of 
his  pupils,  as  guide  to  his  assistants,  and  as  unwearied  and  unsatisfied 
investigator  after  new  applications  of  the  Pestalozzian  method  to 
language,  geography  and  Natural  History.  He  invented  a  useful 
alphabetical  and  reading  machine,  arranged  a  simplified  mode  of  map- 
drawing,  and  a  good  though  unfinished  course  of  instruction  in  Na- 
tural History.  Having  continual  reference  to  the  common  schools,  lie 
paid  much  attention  to  the  subject  of  obtaining  cheap  materials  for 
instruction,  and  took  great  interest  in  the  training  of  teachers,  for 
which  also  he  accomplished  considerable  o^ood. 

An  idea  which  never  left  him  after  his  connection  with  Pestalozzi, 
was  the  training  of  mothers  as  teachers ;  and  the  establishment  of 
the  belief  of  the  destiny  and  fitness  of  the  female  sex  for  this  high 

14 


210  JOHN  GEORGE  TOBLER. 

calling.  Even  in  his  latter  years  be  was  still  enthusiastic  upon  this 
subject,  and  Niederer's  female  school  at  Geneva,  owes  to  him  much 
that  is  valuable. 

The  following  account  of  Tobler's  educational  experiments  and 
failures,  is  given  in  his  own  words,  in  Pestalozzi's  "Eliza  and 
Christopher" 

"  After  having  been,  for  six  years,  practically  engaged  in  education,!  found  the 
result  of  my  labors  by  no  means  answering  my  expectations.  The  energy  of  the 
children,  their  internal  powers,  did  not  increase  according  to  the  measure  of  my 
exertions,  nor  even  in  proportion  to  the  extent  of  positive  information  which  they 
had  acquired :  nor  did  the  knowledge  which  I  imparted  to  them  appear  to  me  to 
have  a  sufficiently  strong  hold  upon  their  minds,  or  to  be  so  well  connected  in  its 
various  parts,  as  J  felt  it  ought  to.be. 

I  made  use  of  the  best  juvenile  works  that  were  to  be  had  at  that  time.  But 
these  books  contained  words,  of  which  the  greater  part  were  unintelligible  to 
children,  and  ideas  far  beyond  the  sphere  of  their  own  experience ;  and  conse- 
quently formed,  altogether,  so  strong  a  contrast  with  the  mode  of  thinking,  feel- 
ing, and  speaking,  natural  to  their  age,  that  it  took  endless  time  and  trouble  to  ex- 
plain all  that  they  could  not  understand.  But  this  process  of  explaining  was  in 
itself  a  tedious  job,  and,  after  all,  it  did  no  more  toward  advancing  their  true  in- 
ternal development,  than  is  done  toward  dispelling  darkness  by  introducing  a  few 
detached  rays  of  light  in  a  dark,  room,  or  in  the  obscurity  of  a  dense,  impenetrable 
mist.  The  reason  of  this  was,  that  these  books  descended  to  the  profoundest 
depths  of  human  knowledge,  or  ascended  above  the  clouds,  nay,  and  to  the  upper- 
most heavens  of  eternal  glory,  before  an  opportunity  was  offered  to  the  children 
of  resting  their  feet  on  the  solid  ground  of  mother  earth  ;  on  which,  nevertheless, 
it  is  absolutely  necessary  that  men  should  be  allowed  to  stand,  if  they  are  to  learn 
walking  before  flying;  and  for  the  latter,  moreover,  if  it  is  to  be  flying  indeed, 
their  wings  must  have  time  to  grow. 

An  obscure  foreboding  of  those  truths  in  my  mind,  induced  me,  at  an  early 
period,  to  try  to  entertain  my  younger  pupils  with  matters  of  immediate  perception, 
and  to  clear  up  the  ideas  of  the  elder  ones  by  Socratic  conversations.  The  result 
of  the  former  plan  was,  that  the  little  ones  acquired  a  variety  of  knowledge  not 
generally  to  be  met  with  at  that  age.  I  endeavored  to  combine  this  mode  of  in- 
struction with  the  methods  I  found  in  the  most  approved  works  ;  but  whichever 
of  those  books  I  took  in  hand,  they  were  all  written  in  such  a  manner  as  to  pre- 
suppose the  very  thing  which  the  children  were  in  a  great  measure  to  acquire  by 
them,  viz.,  the  knowledge  of  language.  The  consequence  was,  that  my  Socratic 
conversations  with  the  elder  pupils  led  to  no  better  result  than  all  other  explana- 
tions of  words  by  words,  to  which  no  real  knowledge  corresponds  in  the  children's 
minds,  and  of  which  they  have,  consequently,  no  clear  notion,  as  regards  either 
each  of  them  taken  separately,  or  the  connection  in  which  they  arc  placed  together. 
This  was  the  case  with  my  pupils,  and,  therefore,  the  explanation  which  they 
seemed  to  understand  to-day,  would  a  few  days  after  be  completely  vanished  from 
their  minds,  in  a  manner  to  me  incomprehensible ;  and  the  more  pains  I  took  to 
make  everything  plain  to  them,  the  less  did  they  evince  energy  or  desire  to  rescue 
things  from  that  obscurity  and  confusion  in  which  they  naturally  appear. 

With  such  experience  daily  before  me,  I  felt  myseif  invincibly  impeded  in  my 
progress  to  the  end  which  I  had  proposed  to  myself.  I  began  to  converse  on  the 
fubject  with  as  many  schoolmasters,  and  others  engaged  or  interested  in  education, 
as  were  accessible  to  me,  in  whatever  direction:  but  I  found,  that  although  their 
libraries  were  well  furnished  with  works  on  education,  of  which  our  age  has  been 
so  productive,  yet  they  saw  themselves  placed  in  the  same  difficulty  with  myself, 
and  were  no  more  successful  with  their  pupils  than  I  was  with  mine.  Seeing 
this,  I  felt  with  what  an  increased  weight  these  difficulties  must  oppress  the  mas- 
ters of  public  schools,  unless,  indeed,  they  were  rendered  too  callous  for"  such  a 
feeling  by  a  professional  spirit.  I  had  a  strong,  but,  unfortunately,  not  a  clear  im- 
p'vssinn  of  tl,"  defects  of  education  in  all  its  departments,  and  I  exerted  myself  to 
the  utmost  to  find  a  remedy.  I  made  a  determination  to  collect,  partly  from  my 


JOHN  GEORGE  TOBLER.  211 

own  experience,  and  partly  from  works  on  the  subject,  all  the  means,  methods, 
and  contrivances,  by  which  it  seemed  to  me  possible  that  the  difficulties  under 
which  I  labored,  might  be  removed  at  every  stage  of  instruction.  But  I  soon 
found  that  my  life  would  not  suffice  for  that  purpose.  Meanwhile  I  had  already 
completed  whole  volumes  of  scraps  and  extracts,  when  Fischer,  in  several  of  his 
letters,  drew  my  attention  to  the  method  of  Pestalozzi.  I  soon  began  to  suspect 
that  lie  was  about  to  reach  the  end  I  was  aiming  at,  without  my  circuitous  means ; 
and  that  most  of  my  difficulties  arose  out  of  the  very  nature  of  the  plan  which  I 
followed,  and  which  was  far  too  scientific  and  systematic.  I  then  began  to  see, 
that  in  the  same  manner  the  artificial  methods,  invented  in  our  age,  were  the  very 
sources  of  ail  the  defects  of  modern  education.  On  the  contrary,  I  saw  Pestalozzi 
equally  free  from  my  peculiar  difficulties,  and  from  tho  general  failings,  and  I  ac- 
counted for  this  by  the  fact,  that  he  rejected  all  our  ingenious  contrivances,  all  our 
well-framed  systems.  Some  of  the  means  employed  by  him,  that  for  instance  of 
making  children  draw  on  slates,  seemed  to  me  so  simple,  that  my  only  puzzle  was, 
how  I  could  have  gone  on  so  long  without  hitting  upon  them.  I  was  struck  with 
the  idea  that  all  his  discoveries,  seemed  to  be  of  the  kind  which  might  be  termed 
"  obvious,"  they  were  none  of  them  far -fetched.  But  what  most  attached  me  to 
his  method,  was  his  principle  of  re-educating  mothers  for  that  for  which  they  ar6 
originally  destined  by  nature,  for  this  principle  I  had  long  cherished  and  kept  in 
view,  in  the  course  of  my  experiments. 

I  was  confirmed  in  these  views  by  Kriisi,  who,  at  his  visit  in  Basle,  gave,  in  the 
girls'  school,  practical  specimens  of  Pestalozzi 's  mode  of  teaching  spelling,  read- 
ing, and  arithmetic.  Pastor  Faesch,  and  Mr.  De  Brunn,  who  had  in  part  organiz- 
ed the  instruction  and  management  of  that  institution,  according  to  the  loose  hints 
which  had  as  yet  reached  us  on  the  Pestalozzian  method,  perceived  immediately 
what  a  powerful  impression  was  produced  upon  the  children  by  their  spelling  and 
/reading  together  in  a  stated  measure  of  time.  Kriisi  had  also  brought  with  him 
'some  school  materials  for  the  instruction  in  writing  and  arithmetic,  and  some 
leaves  of  a  vocabulary,  which  Pestalozzi  intended  to  draw  up  as  a  first  reading- 
book  for  children  ;  which  enabled  us  to  see  the  bearing  which  Pestalozzi 's  method 
had  upon  the  development  of  the  different  faculties  of  human  nature.  All  this 
contributed  to  mature  in  me,  very  rapidly,  the  determination  to  join  Pestalozzi, 
according  to  his  wish. 

I  went  to  Burgdorf,  and  the  first  impression  of  the  experiment,  in  the  state  in 
which  it  then  was,  fully  answered  my  expectations.  I  was  astonished  to  see  what 
a  striking  degree  of  energy  the  children  generally  evinced,  and  how  simple,  and 
yet  manifold,  were  the  means  of  development  by  which  that  energy  was  elicited. 
Pestalozzi  took  no  notice  whatever  of  all  the  existing  systems  and  methods;  the 
ideas  which  he  presented  to  the  minds  of  his  pupils  were  all  extremely  simple; 
his  moans  of  instruction  were  distinctly  subdivided,  each  part  being  calculated  for 
a  precise  period  in  the  progress  of  development ;  whatever  was  complicated  and 
confused,  he  rejected ;  by  a  few  words  he  conveyed  much,  and  with  little  apparent 
exertion  produced  a  powerful  effect;  he  kept  always  close  to  the  point  then  under 
consideration;  some  of  his  branches  of  instruction  seemed  like  a  new  creation, 
raised  from  the  elements  of  art  and  nature  :  all  this  I  saw,  and  my  attention  was 
excited  to  the  highest  degree. 

There  were  some  parts  of  his  experiment,  it  is  true,  which  seemed  to  me  rather 
unnatural ;  of  this  description  was,  for  instance,  the  repetition  of  difficult  and  com- 
plicated sentences,  which  could  not,  at  first,  but  make  a  very  confused  impression 
upon  his  pupils.  But  I  saw,  on  the  other  hand,  what  a  power  he  had  of  leading 
children  into  clear  ideas  ;  yet  I  mentioned  my  doubts  to  him.  His  answer  was, 
that  nature  herself  presented  all  sorts  of  perceptions  to  our  senses  in  confusion  and 
obscurity,  and  that  she  brings  th<-m  to  clearness  afterward.  To  this  argument  I 
had  nothing  to  reply,*  esp  ei.-iMy  as  I  saw  that  he  attached  no  value  to  the  details 

*  The  obvious  reply  was,  that  the  perceptions  which  nature  presents,  however  confused, 
or  otherwise  obscure,  they  may  be.  ;ire  realities,  and  Ihereforecontain  in  themselves  the  very 
elements  of  clearness,  and  at  the  sain,  time,  a  strong  inducement  to  search  for  those  elements. 
But  confiiKt-il  impressions  made  U;KI:I  us  hy  words,  are  not  n-alities.  but  mere  shadows  :  they 
have  in  themselves  the  elements  ofennfusiou.  and  they  oltVr  neither  an  inducement,  nor  thn 
toeang,  for  clearing  them  Up.  The.  form-  r  call  nut  the  mind,  tin-  latter  cramp  it.  The  very 
power  which  Pt-s'alo/zi  pnssessi  d  <>v.rl>is  pupils,  what  was  it  owiiiii  to.  according  m  the 
statements  b«tli  of  hiirHelftuid  his  frlei  d*.  but  tohtu  m-ikinira  ruteof  supplying  the  child  with 
a  clear  and  diblii.ct  notion  of  the  ivaj'.y.  before  l;e  «,ravt  him  the  sign  or  shadow,  the  name  I 


212  JOHN  GEORGE  TOBLER. 

cf  his  experiment,  but  tried  many  of  them  with  a  view  to  throw  them  aside  again, 
as  soon  as  they  should  have  answered  their  temporary  purpose.  With  many  of 
them  he  had  no  other  object  than  to  increase  the  internal  power  of  the  children, 
and  to  obtain  for  himself  further  information  concerning  the  fundamental  princi- 
ples on  which  all  his  proceedings  rested.  I  resolved,  therefore,  not  to  mind  the 
apparent  inadequacy  of  some  of  his  means,  so  much  the  more  as  I  had  come  to  the 
conviction,  that  the  further  pursuit  of  the  experiment  necessarily  involved  the  im- 
provement of  the  details  of  the  method.  This  was  perfectly  evident  already  in 
arithmetic,  in  drawing,  and  in  the  rudiments  of  language. 

I  perceived,  likewise,  that  by  the  connection  which  his  different  means  of  in- 
struction had  with  each  other,  every  one  of  them,  individually,  was  instrumental 
in  promoting  the  success  of  all  the  others,  and,  especially,  in  developing  and 
strengthening  the  faculties  generally.  Long  before  he  began  to  lay  down  his 
principles  in  stated  terms,  I  saw,  in  the  daily  observation  of  their  practical  effect, 
the  approaching  maturity  of  the  whole  undertaking,  and,  as  an  infallible  conse- 
quence of  it,  the  gradual  attainment  of  the  object  he  had  in  view.  In  trying  the 
details  of  his  method,  he  never  leaves  any  single  exercise  until  he  has  so  far  in- 
vestigated and  simplified  it,  that  it  seems  physically  impossible  to  advance  any 
further.  Seeing  the  indefatigable  zeal  with  which  he  did  this,  I  was  more  and 
more  confirmed  in  a  sentiment,  of  which  I  had  before  had  some  indistinct  notion, 
that  all  the  attempts  at  fostering  the  development  of  human  nature,  by  means  of 
a  complicated  and  artificial  language,  must  necessarily  end  in  a  failure ;  but  that, 
on  the  contrary,  a  method  intended  to  assist  nature  in  the  course  of  human  develop- 
ment, must  be  characterised  by  the  utmost  simplicity  in  all  the  means  of  instruc- 
tion, and  more  especially  in  language,  which  should  be  a  faithful  expression  of  the 
simplicity  of  both  the  child's  own  mind,  and  the  objects  and  ideas  which  are  em- 
ployed for  its  cultivation.  I  now  began  to  understand,  by  degrees,  what  he  meant 
by  introducing  a  variety  of  distinctions  in  the  instruction  of  language  ;  by  aiming, 
in  his  arithmetical  instruction,  at  nothing  else  but  producing  in  the  child's  mind  a 
clear  and  indelible  conviction  that  all  arithmetic  was  nothing  else  but  an  abridgment 
of  the  simple  process  of  enumeration,  and  the  numbers  themselves  nothing  but 
an  abridgment  of  the  wearisome  repetition,  one,  and  one,  and  one,  and  one ;  and, 
lastly,  by  declaring  an  early  development  of  the  faculty  of  drawing  lines,  angles, 
curves,  and  figures,  to  be  the  groundwork  of  art,  and  even  of  the  capacity,  which 
so  few  men  possess,  of  taking  a  distinct  view  of  visible  objects. 

I  could  not  but  feel  every  day  more  confirmed  in  the  notions  which  I  had  formed 
of  the  manifold  advantages  of  his  method,  by  being  a  constant  witness  of  the  ef- 
fects produced  by  general  development  of  the  mental  faculties  in  the  arts  of 
measuring,  calculating,  writing,  arid  drawing.  I  grew  more  and  more  convinced 
that  it  was  possible  to  accomplish  what  I  have  before  stated  to  have  been  the  lead- 
ing object  of  my  own  pursuits  at  a  previous  period,  viz.,  to  re-educate  mothers 
for  the  fulfillment  of  that  sacred  task  assigned  to  them  by  nature,  the  result  of 
which  would  be,  that  even  the  first  instruction  imparted  in  schools,  would  have 
previous  maternal  tuition  for  a  foundation  to  rest  on.  I  saw  a  practical  method 
discovered,  which,  admitting  of  universal  application,  would  enable  parents,  who 
have  the  welfare  of  their  offspring  at  heart,  to  become  themselves  the  teachers  of 
their  little  ones.  From  that  moment,  popular  improvement  ceased  to  be  depend- 
ent on  the  circuitous  plan  of  training  teachers  in  expensive  seminaries,  and  with 
the  aid  of  extensive  libraries. 

In  short,  the  result  of  the  first  impression  produced  upon  my  mind  by  the  whole 
of  Pestalozzi's  experiment,  and  of  the  observations  I  have  since  been  able  to  make 
on  the  details  of  his  method,  has  been,  to  re-establish  in  my  heart  that  faith  which 
I  held  so  dear  at  the  onset  of  my  career,  but  which  I  had  almost  lost  under  the 
pressure  of  systems  sanctioned  by  the  fashion  of  the  day,  faith  in  the  practicability 
of  popular  improvement." 

In  the  progress  of  his  narrative  he  declares  himself,  that  it  was  one  of  the  characteristic  fea- 
tures of  his  method  of  teaching  language,  lhat  lie  reduced  it  to  the  utmost  simplicity,  "  by  ex 
eluding  from  it  every  combination  of  words  which  presupposes  a  knowledge  of  language." 
Fie  was  not.  however,  at  all  times,  equally  clear  on  this  point,  although  it  lies  at  the  very 
foundation  of  all  his  improvements  in  elementary  instruction. 


JOHANN  RAMSAUER. 

JOHANN  RAMSAUER  was  born  in  May,  1790,  in  Herisau,  in  the  Swiss 
canton  cf  Appenzell,  where  his  father  carried  on  a  small  manufac- 
tory, and  a  trade  in  the  machines  and  tools  used  in  spinning  and 
weaving-factories.  In  his  fourth  year  he  lost  his  father,  whose  busi- 
ness was  continued  by  his  mother.  He  was  the  youngest  of  her  seven 
remaining  children ;  and  was  occupied  in  the  labors  of  the  establish- 
ment, and  in  accompanying  his  older  brothers  and  sisters  to  market. 
At  home  he  learned  to  work,  and  to  be  orderly,  industrious,  and  obe- 
dient. At  eight  he  was  sent  to  a  wretched  school,  where,  in  two 
years,  he  learned,  with  great  difficulty,  to  write  and  read  ill.  During 
this  period  of  his  life  he  learned  much  more  from  the  good  examples 
set  him  at  home  than  from  the  incompetent  schoolmaster.  In  the 
"  Brief  Sketch  of  My  Pedagogical  Life,"  furnished  originally  for 
Diesterweg's  "  Pedagogical  Germany"  we  are  told  : — 

"When  the  French  Revolution,  during  the  years  1796  to  1799, 
caused  stagnation  of  trade,  general  loss  of  employment,  and  even 
famine  and  all  sorts  of  misery  throughout  Switzerland,  especially  the 
eastern  part,  there  gradually  wandered  away,  out  of  the  cantons  of 
Uri,  Scliwytz,  Unterwalden,  Zug,  Glarus,  and  Appenzell,  five  thousand 
three  hundred  boys  and  girls  of  from  seven  to  fourteen ;  partly  to 
Basle  and  Neuenburg,  but  chiefly  to  the  great  cantons  of  Zurich  and 
Bern,  where  they  were  received  humanely,  and  in  most  cases  treated 
even  with  parental  kindness  and  fidelity.  Although  I  did  not  belong 
to  such  a  troop  of  utterly  destitute  children,  my  mother  yielded  to 
my  often-repeated  request  to  be  also  allowed  to  emigrate ;  and  thus, 
in  February,  1800,  I  left  ray  home  and  wandered  off  with  forty-four 
boys  of  from  ten  to  fourteen  years  old."  He  entered,  while  a  boy,  a 
school  at  Burgdorf,  which  Kriisi  was  teaching;  and  soon  after  that 
of  Pestalozzi.  "  In  the  public  school,  where  Pestalozzi  taught  six 
hours  daily,  I  learned,  school-fashion,  no  more  than  the  rest.  /  But 
his  holy  zeal,  his  deep  and  entirely  self-forgetting  love,  and  his  earn- 
est manner,  impressive  even  to  the  children,  made  the  deepest  im- 
pression upon  me,  and  knit  my  childish,  grateful  heart  to  his  forever.'^) 
He  continued  for  several  years  at  Burgdorf,  as  scholar,  table-waiter, 
and  under-under-teacher.  Ramsauer  became  a  favorite  scholar  of 
Pestalozzi,  and  accompanied  him,  often  acting  as  his  private  secretary, 


214 


JOIIANN  RAMSAUER. 


during  his  stay  at  Burgdorf,  Miinchen-Bucbsee,  and  Yverdun.  At 
the  latter  place  he  acquired  a  knowledge  of  mechanics,  with  the 
view  of  assisting  in  a  school  planned  by  Pestalozzi  for  the  education 
of  the  poor.  He  left  Yverdun  in  April,  1816,  to  become  a  teacher 
iu  a  school  newly  established  at  Wiirzburg ;  departing  from  Pestal- 
ozzi with  great  reluctance,  but  feeling  that  the  influence  and  character 
of  Schmid  rendered  him  of  little  further  use  there,  and  in  part  in- 
duced by  the  privilege  of  free  attendance  upon  lectures  at  the  Univers- 
ity of  Wiirzburg. 

Here  Ramsauer  lived  happily,  making  short  journeys  from  time  to 
time,  giving  private  instruction,  acquiring  new  knowledge  from  the 
university  lectures,  of  a  kind  which  afforded  a  useful  complement  to 
his  previous  practical  studies,  and  growing  so  rapidly  in  reputation 
that,  in  October,  1816,  of  four  invitations  to  other  situations  as 
teacher,  two  were  from  Stuttgardt,  one  inviting  him  to  become 
instructor  of  the  princes  Alexander  and  Peter  of  Oldenburg,  and 
another  to  become  head  of  an  important  school  for  the  elementary 
instruction  of  children  of  the  educated  classes.  Both  these  invita- 
tions he  accepted,  and  went  to  Stuttgardt  in  March,  1817. 

While  here,  he  undertook  a  third  employment  as  teacher  in  a  new 
real  school ;  his  own  institute  being  discontinued,  and  the  male  pupils 
entering  the  real  school,  while  the  female  ones,  whom  he  continued 
to  teach,  attended  the  Katharinenstift,  a  female  school  established 
by  the  Queen  of  Wirtemburg,  and  opened  with  an  address  by  the 
queen  herself. 

The  young  princes  of  Oldenburg  leaving  Stuttgardt  in  1820,  for 
the  court  of  their  grandfather,  the  Duke  of  Oldenburg,  Ramsauer 
attended  them  thither,  to  continue  their  education  in  mathematics, 
drawing,  and  gymnastics.  Some  months  afterward  he  opened  a 
school  for  girls  of  the  educated  classes,  which  he  was  still  conducting 
with  success  in  1838. 

In  1826  he  was  appointed  teacher  of  the  duchesses  Amalia  and 
Frederiea  of  Oldenburg,  whom  he  instructed  for  ten  years.  After- 
ward he  established  in  Oldenburg  a  school  for  the  daughters  of  per- 
sons of  the  educated  classes.  Here  he  published  his  "Instruction  in 
Form,  Size,  and  Substance  ;  being  the  elements  of  Geometry  meth- 
odized. With  fifteen  lithographic  plates.  1826."  He  had  before 
published  his  work  on  "  Drawing,  "  in  two  volumes,  thirty-one  litho- 
graphic plates. 

Ramsauer  sums  up  his  pedagogical  experience  as  follows : — 

1.  I  learned,  in  my  father's  house,  up  to  my  tenth  year,  to  pray  and  to  obey. 

2.  In  Srhleutnen,  to  run,  climb,  and  jump. 

3.  "\Vith   Pestalozzi,  from  my  eleventh  to  my  twenty-sixth  year,  to  work,  to 
think,  and  to  observe. 


JOIIANN  RAMSAUER,  215 

4.  During  my  various  journeys,  to  be  independent,  and  to  help  myself. 

5.  In  Wiirzburg  and  Stuttgardt,  to  be  more  modest,  and  to  some  extent  a 
knowledge  of  the  world  and  of  family  life. 

6.  In  Oldeaburg,  ihe  word  of  God;  to  endure  good  and  evil  with  equanimi- 
ty, well-knowing  whence  and  why  they  come ;  and  in  many  ways  the  knowl- 
edge that  we  live  upon  a  beautiful  and  wonderful  earth,  but  that  to  care  and 
strive  for  things  connected  with  it,  is  a  troubled  life;  that  it  is  well  worth  while 
to  pay  regard  to  the  spirit  of  the  age ;  and  that  it  is  possible  to  live  very  hap- 
pily here  below,  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  prepare  one's  self  well  for  the  better 
future  life. 

We  give  some  further  extracts  from  the  "  Sketches"  which  may 
be  interesting  to  readers  connected  with  the  work  of  education. 

I  have  already  said  that  the  finer  social  graces  must  either  be  inborn  or  de- 
veloped by  culture.  Even  of  the  simple  politeness  of  a  boy's  manners  this  is 
true.  I  have  found  this  always  to  be  the  case.  Those  to  whom  this  gift  is  nat- 
ural are  usually  of  rather  weak  or  superficial  intellects;  but,  as  the  saying  is, 
they  get  well  through  the  world — that  is,  easily  attain  eminence  in  society. 
This  opinion  has  led  me  to  another  and  a  more  important  one,  namely,  that 
in  practical  life  it  is  of  little  moment  whether  one  has  "a  good  head,"  (ein  guttr 
kopf.)  It  is  of  much  greater  importance,  however,  what  is  one's  character  for 
truthfulness  and  perseverance;  and  much  more,  that  he  keep  his  faith.  Through 
this  last,  if  it  be  of  the  right  kind,  comes  the  blessing.  As  to  the  point  of  prac- 
tical efficiency,  every  one  of  even  moderate  experience  in  the  world  will  agree 
with  me  that  those  men  who  have  filled  important  places  in  the  world,  are  in- 
debted to  their  truthfulness,  perseverance,  and  uprightness,  much  more  than  to 
their  "good  head,"  or  their  "genius."  This  is  especially  true  of  those  of  the 
burgher  class.  Even  in  the  elementary  school,  this  truthfulness  and  persever- 
ance can  be  cultivated,  proved,  and  established ;  but  it  is  home  education  which 
must  do  most  of  it. 

It  has  often  troubled  me  to  hear  of  a  "smart  boy"  (guten  kopfe,)  in  a  family 
or  school,  and  to  see  those  undervalued  who  lacked  such  a  qualification.  Such 
conduct  discourages  those  reckoned  inferior,  (who  subsequently  very  probably 
may  excel  them.)  and  only  makes  those  possessed  of  this  apparent  talent  con- 
ceited and  heartless.  Faith  and  good  feeling  forbid  such  doing ;  unless  we  are 
born  merely  for  the  span  of  present  existence!  Young  teachers,  just  com- 
mencing, are  especially  prone  to  fix  upon  such  smart  boys ;  but  commonly  de- 
ceive themselves,  by  setting  a  high  value  upon  a  mere  partial  quickness  of 
apprehension.  There  are  even  teachers,  whether  from  the  fear  of  men  or 
from  some  other  discreditable  weakness,  who  praise  every  thing  they  see  in 
their  scholars;  or  who,  after  they  have  complained  to  their  colleagues  about 
scholars  all  the  3- ear,  will,  at  the  end  of  the  term,  make  out  for  them  certificates 
of  unqualified  excellence. 

I  have  known  not  only  hundreds  but  thousands  of  proofs  that,  however  un- 
pleasanl  a  strict  teacher  my  be  to  a  bad  scholar,  such  a  scholar  will,  in  the  end, 
feel  toward  him  more  respect,  and  gratitude,  and  love;  provided  only  that  the 
strictness  was  just — that  is,  without  respect  of  persons,  partiality,  or  passion- 
al "ness.  l;.ven  the  most  spoiled  of  children  will  endure  ten  times  more  from 
such  a  teacher  than  from  another,  provided  only  that  the  parents  acquiesce  in  it. 

There  are  also  teachers  who  lay  great  stress  upon  learning  quickly;  forget- 
ting that  the  most  superficial  scholars  are  often  the  quickest.  Such  will  find,  by 
experiments  enough,  that  these  forget  just  as  quickly;  while  things  acquired 
with  more  pains  remain  longer  in  the  memory,  and  are  better  understood.  The 
principal  thing  is  thoroughness;  it  is  this  only  which  truly  educates — which 
tells  upon  character.  Merely  to  know  more  or  less  is  of  little  significance; 
whoever  imagines  that  he  knows  very  much,  does,  in  fact,  know  pitifully  little. 
This  thoroughness  should  be  a  characteristic  even  of  the  lowest  elementary 
school ;  and  is  a  constituent  of  what  I  have  already  referred  to  as  perseverance. 
A  condition  preparatory  to  this  thoroughness  is,  that  the  scholar  be  constrained 
(without  any  apparent  force,  however,)  into  thinking  and  laboring  independ- 
ently. Thus  I  have  often  said  to  an  indolent  or  compliant  scholar,  who  imitated 
others  rather  too  easily,  ""ijour  own  eating  must  make  you  fat:  that  you 


2  J  6  JOHANN  RAMSATJER. 

know  very  well.  Just  so,  your  own  thinking  must  make  you  wise ;  and  your 
own  practice  must  make  you  dexterous." 

A  condition  of  thoroughness  is  repetition ;  constant  repetition.  This  means 
is,  to  many  teachers,  too  wearisome,  or  too  slow :  the  latter,  to  those  who  instruct 
mechanically  only;  the  former,  to  those  who  have  never  perceived  and  learned 
for  themselves,  but  only  out  of  books.  ;JBut  a  teacher  whose  heart  is  really  in 
liis  work  will  be  drilling  often  and  earnestly,  and  always  in  new  ways ;  so  that 
both  the  scholar  and  he  himself  will  always  be  getting  at  a  new  and  interesting 
side  of  the  subject.  But  a  teacher  who  labors  in  two  or  three  departments  of 
study  with  vivacity  and  pleasure,  and  gives  really  thorough  instruction — such 
as  really  educates — will  naturally  have  neither  time  nor  wish  to  expend  several 
hours  daily  in  a  club  or  in  other  mere  amusements.  His  greatest  happiness 
will  be  in  his  calling ;  and  in  daily  progress  in  whatever  is  truly  useful  for  time 
and  eternity.  Such  a  teacher  will  live  as  much  as  possible  amongst  his  own 
children,  if  he  has  them ;  arid  the  more  he  does  so,  the  better  wiJl  he  compre- 
hend other  children,  and,  therefore,  the  better  will  he  manage  them. ; 

Among  my  own  children,  as  well  as  among  those  of  others,  I  have  repeatedly 
experienced  that  there  is  a  school  understanding,  a  conversation  understanding, 
and  a  life  or  practical  understanding;  all  three  very  clearly  distinct,  especially 
the  first  and  the  third.  If  the  teacher  only  understands  the  first  of  these,  he 
on.ly  half-understands  even  that ;  and  is  in  great  danger  of  exacting  too  much 
or  too  little  from  his  scholars.  In  like  manner,  parents  are  liable  to  do  the 
teacher  injustice,  if  they  judge  of  their  children  only  by  their  words  and  actions 
at  home.  Girls  especially,  who  in  school  hardly  dare  open  their  mouths,  often 
appear  astonishingly  quick  and  intelligent  outside ;  so  that  those  will  be  much 
deceived  who  overlook  the  multitude  of  cases  in  which  children  imitate  the 
words  and  actions  of  adults,  and  pass  off  their  sayings  for  their  own  coin.  The 
school  understanding  is  the  most  suitable  for  scholars ;  as  their  passions  are  less 
liable  to  come  into  play  in  connection  with  it,  and  all  matters  which  are  regu- 
larly arranged  and  under  rules  assist  its  onward  progress.  From  this  differ- 
ence it  often  follows  that  the  same  scholar  who  is  industrious,  efficient,  and 
intelligent  in  school,  and  seems  there  to  be  far  forward  for  his  age,  is  wholly  a 
child  when  outside  of  it,  childish  and  simple  (as  he  should  be,)  and  apparently 
quite  backward  in  understanding,  and  this  especially  where  he  needs  to  govern 
himself  and  to  exhibit  character. 

Such  experiences  of  a  hundred  others  will  lead  every  observing  teacher — I 
do  not  state  this  as  any  thing  new,  but  merely  as  something  of  psychological 
importance,  and  therefore  not  susceptible  of  too  frequent  repetition — to  require 
from  his  scholars  neither  too  much  nor  too  little,  and  to  hope  from  them  neither 
too  much  nor  too  little.  And  I  believe  that  the  frequent  enforcement  of  such 
experiences  would  materially  ease  the  difficult  calling  of  the  teacher,  especially 
at  its  commencement,  and  would  save  beginners  our  trouble  at  Pestalozzi's  In- 
stitute ;  that  is,  from  spending  all  the  first  years  of  their  work  in  proving  and 
experimenting,  without  the  advantage  of  being  able  to  learn  of  their  prede- 


JOHN  ERNST  PLAMANN. 


JOHN  ERNST  PLAMANN,  an  earnest  and  influential  teacher  and 
apostle  of  the  Pestalozzian  system,  in  Prussia,  was  born  on  the  22d 
of  June,  1771,  at  Repzin,  of  poor  but  respectable  parents  of  the 
burgher  class,  and  received  his  elementary  education  at  the  Royal 
Real  School  in  Berlin,  from  which  he  was  removed  to  the  Joachims- 
thai  Gymnasium,  then  under  the  charge  of  the  celebrated  Meierotto. 
In  1796  he  resorted  to  Halle  to  study  theology,  and  at  the  same  time 
acquire  the  principles  of  pedagogy  under  Niemeyer.  After  spending 
a  few  years  as  a  private  tutor  in  the  family  of  his  brother-in-law,  and 
passing  his  examination  for  a  license  to  teach,  he  returned  to  Berlin, 
to  continue  his  classical  studies,  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  give  instruc- 
tion in  the  Messow  Institute  and  other  industrial  schools,  preparatory 
to  founding  one  of  the  same  class  for  himself. 

At  this  time  the  fame  of  Pestalozzi  had  spread  into  Germany,  and 
Plamann  resolved  to  see  for  himself  the  great  schoolmaster  who  was 
so  extravagantly  praised  and  beloved.  Having  read  "  How  Gertrude 
teaches  her  Children"  he  could  not  rest ;  but,  borrowing  some  money  to 
pay  his  expenses,  he  set  out  in  May,  1803,  for  Switzerland ;  having 
announced  his  intention  to  Pestalozzi  in  a  letter,  from  which  the 
following  is  an  extract : 

Thanks  is  a  powerless  word  to  express  the  enthusiasm  which  your  letters 
upon  instruction  have  kindled  in  me.  But  you  will  not  despise  my  utterance  ; 
indeed  you  will  not  hear  it,  amid  the  loud  praises  which  nations  are  giving  you. 
Of  that  your  heart  assures  me,  noble  man,  who  have  so  acutely  and  truly  dis- 
played the  inmost  laws  of  the  development  of  the  human  soul,  and  with  a  wise 
and  strong  hand  laid  out  the  path  and  the  art  of  training  it.  You  have  so 
radiated  upon  me  the  light  of  truth,  and  so  inspired  my  breast,  that  I  also  feel 
the  sacred  call  to  labor  in  my  fatherland  to  the  same  end,  according  to  my 
powers.  The  saying  of  our  great  teacher,  "Many  are  called,  but  few 
chosen,"  shall  not  discourage  me  if  I  can  enjoy  your  instructions  and  wise 
dii'ection.  With  that  I  can  escape  from  the  old,  lifeless,  beaten  track,  which  I 
have  been  obliged  to  follow  in  my  labor  as  a  teacher,  and  will  be  able  to  do 
something  in  the  necessary  work  of  teaching  the  neglected  to  elevate  them- 
selves. 0,  if  you  will  give  me  power  ;  if  you  will  make  me  an  example  of 
your  methods  ;  if  you  will  instruct  me  thoroughly  in  your  system  ;  then  I 
hope,  with  confidence  and  success,  to  sow  the  seed  which  your  benevolence  shall 
have  entrusted  to  me,  £c. 

Pestalozzi  was  then  at  Burgdorf.  There  soon  sprung  up  between 
him  and  Plamann  a  friendship  based  upon  mutual  appreciation ;  for 
Plamann,  with  his  thorough  knowledge  of  the  labor  of  former  schools 

(217) 


218  JOHN    ERNST    PLAMANN. 

in  pedagogy,  his  scientific  attainments,  his  philosophical  intellect  and 
psychological  insight,  was  a  valuable  supplementary  person  to  the 
Swiss  reformer,  who  had  only  his  own  experience  of  the  results  of  his 
always  original  mental  action.  The  latter  candidly  explained  to  him 
what  he  was  seeking,  both  by  means  of  written  and  oral  communica- 
tion, until  he  understood  him  and  his  system  thoroughly.  Plamann 
writes : 

Pestalozzi  received  me  like  a  father.  No  man  ever  looked  so  quickly  and 
deeply  into  my  soul  as  he.  At  once  he  comprehended  my  whole  being,  and 
pressed  me  to  his  breast  with  the  warmth  of  a  brother.  At  his  side  I  learned 
to  feel  how  many  were  my  faults  as  a  man.  I  was  modest,  and  told  him  of  my 
discovery  with  tearful  eyes.  *' You  are  a  child  of  nature,"  he  answered  ;  "  an 
adept  in  the  rules  of  science  and  art,  which  I  am  not  ;  and  which,  never- 
theless, a  man  must  be  in  this  world."  Thus  he  used  to  encourage  me  to  have 
more  confidence  in  myself.  A  poem  which  I  gave  him  moved  him  to  tears.  He 
smothered  me  with  kisses,  and  said,  "  No  one  has  understood  me  so  well." 

Plamann  remained  several  months  in  Burgdorf,  laboring  zealously 
at  the  new  method ;  and  became  so  dear  to  Pestalozzi,  that  he  could 
not  endure  to  have  him  depart,  and  even  offered  him  money  sufficient  to 
enable  him  to  bring  his  betrothed  to  Switzerland.  But  he  was  impa- 
tient to  introduce  the  new  method  into  his  fatherland.  Immediately 
after  his  return  to  Berlin,  Plamann  proceeded  to  put  his  newly-gotten 
knowledge  into  practice  in  the  institution  where  he  was  teaching,  and 
to  apply  the  method  also  to  other  subjects.  He  maintained  a  regular 
correspondence  with  Pestalozzi  and  his  assistants,  especially  with 
Niederer.  The  Swiss  took  the  utmost  interest  in  his  labors,  kept  him 
acquainted  with  their  researches,  and  awaited  with  solicitude  the 

_____result  of  his  undertakings. 

In  1805  Plamann  published  his  work,  "  Some  Principles  of  the 
art  of  Instruction  according  to  Pestalozzi }s  Method,  applied  to  Ndtu- 
ral  History,  Geography,  and  Language."  (Einzige  Grundregel  der 
Unterrichtskunst  nach  Pestalozzi's  Methode,  angewandt  in  der  Na- 

^^Jurgeschichte,  Geographic  und  Sprache.}  In  this  publication,  he 
showed  upon  what  a  deep  psychological  basis  Pestalozzi's  system 
rested,  and  how  it  is  necessarily  derived  from  the  laws  of  human 
thought.  While,  however,  they  commence  with  the  same  principles, 
follow  them  out  with  like  results,  and  in  like  manner  connect  them 
with  others,  their  related  ones,  Plamann  differs  from  Pestalozzi  on  the 
view  laid  down  in  the  "Book  for  Mothers"  that  education  should  begin 
with  instruction  on  the  human  body,  on  the  ground  that  the  similarity 
of  it  with  the  bodies  of  animals  does  not  much  concern  the  child,  and 
that  instruction  by  a  teacher  should  not  be  given  so  early.  He 
thought  it  more  proper  for  the  mother  to  teach  the  child  about  such 
objects  as  are  within  the  sphere  of  the  child's  knowledge ;  —  the 


JOHN    ERNST    PLAMANN.  219 

house,  furniture,  clothes,  &c.  He  then  proceeds  to  apply  the  method 
to  the  three  departments  of  natural  history,  to  geography,  and  to  the 
German  language.  He  promised  in  the  second  part  to  continue  the 
course  of  instructions  on  language  and  geography,  as  well  as  on  tech- 
nology and  history ;  but  this  has  never  been  published. 

On  account  of  his  high  standing  with  Pestalozzi,  his  zeal  in  study- 
ing the  method,  and  in  extending  it  by  his  writings,  he  became  a 
centre  for  the  operations  of  those  who  were  following  the  new  views  in 
Prussia,  and  were  endeavoring  to  spread  them  there.  All  applied  to 
him  for  directions,  school-books,  plans  for  schools,  and  information  as 
to  the  spread  and  results  of  the  new  method ;  and  he  was  also  in 
communication  with  persons  in  foreign  countries. 

Soon  after  his  return  to  Prussia  from  Switzerland,  Plamann  under- 
took himself  to  found  an  institution  for  the  practice  of  Pestalozzi's 
methods.  For  this  he  obtained  the  royal  permission,  Nov.  29, 1803,  and 
opened  the  institution  at  Michaelmas,  1805,  with  his  friend  Schmidt ; 
obtaining  also,  soon  after,  an  assistant  from  Switzerland,  Breissig  by 
name.  His  undertaking  drew  much  attention,  and  proved  quite  suc- 
cessful. In  the  following  year  he  published  two  instructive  works : 

"  Course  of  Instruction  for  a  Pestalozzian  School  for  Boys" 
(Anordnung  des  Unterrichts  fur  ein  Pestalozzische  Knaben  Schule.) 

" Elementary  Methods  of  Instruction  in  Language  and  Science" 
(Elementarformen,  Sprach-u.  wissenschaftlichen  Unterrichtskunst.} 

At  Easter,  1812,  Plamann  gave  up  his  school,  and  visited  once 
more  his  beloved  Pestalozzi,  to  make  himself  acquainted  with  the 
progress  of  the  method,  and  to  observe  what  was'  going  on  in  the 
schools  of  Switzerland.  Upon  his  return  he  at  once  commenced  again 
to  "  Pestalozzianize,"  as  he  expressed  himself,  and  bought  a  house  in 
Berlin,  in  which  to  erect  an  institution.  In  the  same  year  he  com- 
menced a  publication,  which  he  finished  in  1815,  entitled,  "  Contribu- 
tions to  Pedagogical  Criticism  ;  in  Defence  of  the  Pestalozzian  Meth- 
od" (Beitrage  zur  P  adagogischen  Kritik  ;  zur  Vertheidigung  der 
Pestalozzischen  Methode. ) 

A  full  description  of  his  new  Pestalozzian  institution  will  be  found 
in  the  "  Biography  of  Plamann,  by  Doctor  Franz  Bredow"  Pla- 
mann adhered  closely  to  the  Pestalozzian  principles  throughout ;  pro- 
ceeding strictly  according  to  the  forms  of  the  Swiss  at  first,  but  using 
more  and  more  independent  methods  as  he  went  on.  His  school  was 
resorted  to  by  young  men  from  all  quarters,  who  were  ambitious  to 
understand  and  disseminate  the  improved  methods  of  teaching,  and 
he  was  never  more  popular  than  when  he  gave  up  his  school  from 
the  pressure  of  bodily  infirmities,  against  which  he  had  long  struggled. 
He  died  on  the  3d  of  September,  1834. 


HANS   GEORG   NAGELI. 

HANS  GEORG  NAGELI,  by  whose  compositions  and  teaching  the 
Pestalozzian  method  of  instruction  was  applied  to  the  study  of  music, 
was  born,  May  17,  1773,  at  Wetzekon,  a  village  in  the  canton  of  Zu- 
rich, of  which  his  father  was  pastor.  After  receiving  his  rudimentary 
education  at  home,  he  went  to  Zurich  in  1786,  to  continue  his  studies  ; 
but  homesickness  soon  drew  him  back  to  his  father's  home,  where  he 
devoted  himself  carefully  to  the  study  of  music,  and  in  1790  he  again 
resorted  to  Zurich,  when  in  a  few  years  we  find  him  in  a  music  store 
and  musical  circulating  library  of  his  own,  and  at  the  same  time 
giving  lessons  in  singing.  He  became  a  composer  and  publisher  of 
music,  and  in  1800  he  established  a  periodical  principally,  devoted  to 
his  favorite  art.  His  song,  "  Life  let  us  cherish,"  accompaniments  of 
harp  and  harpsichord,  published  in  1794,  passed  the  parlor,  and 
the  fireside,  and  the  social  gathering  of  rich  and  poor,  all  over  Europe  ; 
and  the  same  popularity  has  marked  other  productions  of  his. 

Nageli  was  one  of  the  earliest  founders,  even  if  he  did  not  originate, 
the  Swiss  musical  league  or  union,  which  set  the  example  of  great 
musical  festivals,  attended  by  concourses  of  people,  practically  engaged 
in  or  lovers  of  the  art.  He  went  out  frequently  to  give  instruction 
to  musical  societies  in  the  different  cantons,  to  lecture  on  the  subject 
to  conventions  of  teachers,  and,  in  1810,  published,  in  connection 
with  M.  T.  PfeifFer,  "  The  Theory  of  Instruction  in  Singing,  on  Pes- 
talozzian Principles"  (Die  Gesangbildunyslehre  nach  Pcstalozzischen 
Grundsdtzcn,)  by  which  a  new  epoch  in  this  department  of  education 
was  introduced.  The  treatise  was  the  best  realization  of  the  method 
of  Pestalozzi,  and  soon  made  singing  a  regular  study  in  the  popular 
schools  of  Europe,  particularly  those  of  Switzerland  and  Germany. 
By  the  efforts  of  William  C.  Woodbridge  and  Lowell  Mason,  the 
method  of  Nageli  was  introduced  into  the  United  States  ;  and,  in  con- 
sequence, the  study  of  music  became  much  more  philosophical  and 
general,  and  is  fast  passing  into  the  course  of  instruction  in  our  com- 
mon schools. 

Nageli  died  at  Zurich,  on  the  26th  of  December,  1836,  from  a  cold 
he  contracted  in  discharge  of  his  duties  as  a  member  of  the  council 
of  education. 


WILH1LM   HARNISCH 


WILHELM  HARNISCH  was  born,  August  28th,  1787,  at  Wilsnach,  in 
the  Prussian  government  of  Potsdain — the  only  son  of  a  prosperous 
master-tailor,  who  intended  him  for  the  study  of  theology,  and  accord- 
ingly placed  him  at  the  gymnasium  in  Salzvvedel  in  1800,  and  caused 
him  to  study  from  1806  to  1808  at  Halle  and  Frankfort-on-the-Oder. 
Here  he  already  began  to  devote  himself  particularly  to  the  study  of 
pedagogy,  and  very  soon  commenced  the  practice  of  it,  taking  a  situ- 
ation as  private  tutor  in  a  distinguished  family  in  Mecklenburg,  where 
a  well-selected  library  was  at  his  command,  .and  Rousseau's  "  Emile* 
was  the  favorite  study  of  the  accomplished  mistress  of  the  family.  In 
1810  he  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  summoned  to  Berlin,  in  order  to 
be  made  acquainted  with  the  Pestalozzian  system  in  Plamann's  insti- 
tution, at  the  expense  of  the  State.  Here,  in  the  society  of  Fichte, 
Schleiermacher,  Kopfe,  Zeune,  Jahn,  Kloden,  and  other  eminent  liter- 
ati, statesmen,  and  educators,  he  completed  his  higher  scientific  edu- 
cation, and  also  took  an  active  part  in  the  first  establishment  of  the 
fencing  school,  and  the  gymnastic  and  swimming  institutions.  In 
1812  he  took  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy,  married  the 
daughter  of  a  landed  proprietor  in  Russian  Lithuania,  and  became 
favorably  known  by  his  first  work,  "  The  German  Common  Schools.1* 
Being  appointed  teacher  in  the  new  Teachers'  Seminary  at  Breslau, 
established  upon  Pestalozzi's  principles,  he  introduced,  with  excellent 
results,  a  system  of  instruction  in  reading  and  writing,  which  he  also 
made  known  in  various  publications.  While  here  he  also  wholly 
originated  or  took  part  in  various  academical  labors ;  established  a 
Society  of  Teachers,  took  partial  charge  of  the  education  of  Princess 
Charlotte,  afterward  Empress  of  Russia,  and  lived  in  friendly  inter- 
course with  Professors  Schneider,  Wachler,  Steffens,  Passow,  Kaysler, 
&c.  In  1822  he  was  appointed  director  of  the  Teachers'  Seminary 
at  Weissenfels,  to  which  he  gave  a  reputation  second  to  no  other  in 
Germany,  and  which  is  well  known  in  this  country,  through  the  Re- 
ports of  Stowe,  Bache,  and  Mann. 

In  1834  he  received  from  the  King  of  Prussia  the  red  order  of 
nobility,  fourth  class ;  has  received  honorary  gifts  from  the  Emperor 
and  Empress  of  Russia,  and  other  royal  personages ;  besides  pecuni- 
ary means  for  various  pedagogical  journeys.  In  1837  he  was  com- 
plimented by  his  colleagues  and  scholars  with  the  celebration  of  a 


222  WILHELM  HAUNISCH. 

jubilee  on  occasion  of  the  twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  his  labors  as  a, 
teacher.  He  has  rendered  distinguished  services  toward  the  perfec- 
tion of  the  common  school  system  of  Prussia,  by  his  manifold  prac- 
tical and  literary  labors. 

The  principal  of  his  numerous  writings  are  the  following : — 

THE  GERMAN  COMMON  SCHOOLS  (Die  Dtutscher  Volksschulen,}  Berlin,  1812. 

COMPLETE  INSTRUCTION  IN  GERMAN  (Vollddndiger  Untvrricht  in  der  Deuischen 
Sprache,)  Breslau,  1814. 

COMPLETE  EXPOSITION  OF  THE  BELL-LANG  A  STERI  AN  SYSTEM  (Ausfuhrliche  Dar- 
sttllunij  dss  BeU- Lancaster schen  Schulwesens,)  Breslau,  1819. 

LIFE  OF  THE  TUTOR  FELIX  KASKORBI  (a  pedagogical  romance,)  (Das  Leben  des 
Hausldirers  Felix  Kaskorbi,  ein  padagogitcher  Roman,}  Breslau,  1820. 

HAND-BOOK  FOR  THE  GERMAN  SCHOOL  SYSTEM  (Ilandbuch  fur  das  Deutsche 
Volksschulivesen,)  Breslau,  1820. 

THE  EDUCATION  AND  SCHOOL  COUNCILOR  (Die  Erziehungs-und  Schulrath.) 
2-4  parts.  Breslau,  1815  to  1820. 

THE  COMMON  SCHOOL  TEACHER,  (five  years,)  (Die  Votisschulkhrer,)  (5  jahr- 
ganrje,}  Halle,  1824  to  1828. 

THE  GERMAN  BURGHER  SCHOOLS  (Die  Deutsche  Burgerschule,)  Halle,  1830. 

THE  WEISSENFELS  SEMINARY  (Das  Weissenfelser  Seminar,)  Berlin,  1838.  (Con- 
taining an  autobiograph  sketch.) 


KARL  AUGUST  ZELLER. 


KARL  AUGUST  ZELLER,  High  School  Councillor  and  Royal  Council- 
lor of  the  Kingdom  of  Prussia,  was  born  August  15th,  1774,  in 
Ludwigsburg,  Wirtemberg.  He  was  educated  in  a  theological  semi- 
nary, and  in  1798  received  an  appointment  as  teacher  and  assistajit^ 
preacher  in  the  evangelical  congregation  at  Brunn.  In  1803,  he  pro- 
ceeded to  Pestalozzi's  establishment  at  Burgdorf,  for  the  purpose  of 
making  himself  acquainted  with  his  new  system  of  instruction.  An 
offer,  which  he  accepted,  to  accompany  a  young  man  of  the  Yon 
Palm  family  upon  his  travels,  gave  him  occasion,  while  at  Tubingen 
in  the  winter  of  1804,  to  establish  a  charity  school  for  the  purpose  of 
trying  Pestalozzi's  plans,  and  afterwards,  at  the  request  of  some  of  his 
scholars  at  Brunn,  a  Sunday-school.  Both  are  described  in  a  work 
dedicated  to  that  friend  of  education,  the  late  Pauline,  Princess  of 
Detmold,  who  gave  him  the  appointment  of  Councillor,  and  retained 
a  decided  interest  in  his  prosperity  until  her  death. 

Zeller  became  pastor  at  St.  Gall,  and  teacher  in  the  gymnasium 
there,  in  1805.  In  1806,  he  became  acquainted,  in  Zurich,  with  the 
Senator  Rusterholz,  who  had  a  scheme  for  educating  all  the  teachers 
of  the  cantons  in  normal  schools,  which  he  was  prevented  from  carry- 
ing out  by  sickness.  Becoming  much  interested  for  the  sick  man  and 
his  designs,  he  agreed  to  remain  in  Zurich  and  endeavor  to  assist  him ; 
to  which  cooperation  the  authorities  of  the  cantons  agreed. 

The  first  course  of  instruction  was  opened  in  1806,  with  thirty 
pupils,  by  a  commission  of  school  councillors,  under  the  presidency  of 
Superintendent  G^essner.  The  lectures,  here  devoted  to  the  principles 
of  correct  school  discipline,  gave  Zeller  an  opportunity  of  composing 
his  "  School  for  Teachers"  After  the  decisive  experiment  of  this 
course,  seven  thousand  florins  were  appropriated  to  defray  the  expense 
of  a  Normal  School,  Pestalozzi's  arithmetic  was  introduced,  and  a  plan 
of  teaching  drawn  up  by  Zeller  was  printed  and  introduced  into  the  pa- 
rochial schools  of  the  canton.  A  second  and  a  third  part  to  this  treatise 
soon  followed.  Being  appointed  Director  of  the  Normal  Institute, 
he  trained,  in  1807,  among  others,  a  Catholic  clergyman,  sent  to  him 
by  the  government  of  Lucerne,  and  who  was  followed  by  three  canons 
from  the  same  canton,  who  had  been  studying  at  Kreutzlingen  in  the 


224  KARL  AUGUST  ZELLER. 

Thurgan,  under  the  patronage  of  Von  Wessenberg.  Meanwhile,  a 
favorable  report  was  made  by  a  commission  of  clergymen  upon  the 
result  of  the  first  three  courses  of  the  normal  school ;  and,  whereupon, 
Zeller  published  a  work  on  the  subject,  in  the  form  of  letters  ad- 
dressed to  the  Princess  Pauline.  Three  courses  of  lectures  now  fol- 
lowed, one  of  which  was  delivered  before  the  Swiss  Diet,  and  the 
attention  of  the  Confederation  was  thus  drawn  to  the  subject  of  them. 

The  year  1808  found  Zeller  with  Pestalozzi,  teaching  and  learn- 
ing, and  enjoying  himself  amongst  the  children.  In  returning,  he 
passed  through  Hofwyl,  where  a  young  Bernese  gave  him  fifty  Caro- 
lines, with  the  request  that  he  would  undertake  a  school  for  teachers 
among  his  country  people  in  that  neighborhood.  Upon  the  invitation 
of  the  consistory,  who  added  thirty  Carolines,  forty  teachers  assembled, 
and  remained  under  his  instruction  ten  months.  A  French  teacher, 
under  an  assumed  name,  also  attended  this  course,  and  afterwards 
pursued  his  vocation  in  his  own  country.  By  reason  of  the  open 
recognition  by  the  Bernese  government  of  his  efforts,  in  spite  of  mali- 
cious opposition,  and  having  a  little  before  received  a  call  from  Zofin- 
gen,  Zeller  had  meditated  spending  the  remainder  of  his  life  as  a 
Swiss  burgher ;  but  the  visit  of  the  King  of  Wirtemberg  to  Hofwyl 
gave  another  direction  to  his  life. 

The  king  had  attended  five  of  his  lectures,  and  was  so  much  pleased 
with  what  he  saw  and  heard,  that  he  declared  that  he  could  not  per- 
mit Zeller  to  remain  in  that  place.  In  fact,  he  shortly  after  received 
the  appointment  of  school-inspector  at  Heilbronn,  and,  two  months 
later,  an  appointment  at  Konigsberg  from  the  Prussian  minister  of 
state,  Yon  Schrotter,  whom  War-councillor  Schiffner  had  made 
"""acquainted  with  the  "Letters  to  the  Princess  Pauline"  Not  yet 
actually  employed  in  Heilbronn,  Zeller  requested  permission  to  accept 
the  latter ;  but  an  order  to  the  teachers  of  the  vicinity  to  assemble 
there,  and  to  himself  as  the  proper  schoolmaster  to  instruct  them, 
was  the  answer.  Forty-two  teachers  assembled,  including  one  minis- 
ter, and  remained,  at  their  own  expense,  six  weeks.  The  assembly 
was  characterized  by  the  same  pleasant  activity,  good  nature  and 
success,  which  had  appeared  in  Switzerland. 

In  April,  1809,  with  the  office  of  Councillor  in  the  government  of  East 
Prussia,  he  was  authorized  to  organize  the  Orphan  House  at  Konigsberg 
as  a  model  school,  in  which  young  clergymen  and  teachers  might  be  in- 
structed, with  courses  of  lectures  on  the  administration  and  instruction 
of  schools,  and  traverse  all  the  provinces  of  the  kingdom  for  similar  pur- 
poses. On  condition  that  he  should  deliver  one  more  course  of  lectures 
to  clergymen  of  all  three  confessions,  the  King  of  Wirtemberg  at  length 


KARL  AUGUST  ZELLER.  225 

allowed  him  to  accept  the  appointment.  Fifty-two  eminent  clergy- 
men and  six  teachers  assembled,  and  remained  under  his  instruction 
during  four  weeks.  A  commission  from  the  High  Consistory  of  the 
kingdom  and  from  the  Council  of  Catholic  Clergy  held  an  examination 
upon  the  result,  and  Zeller,  accompanied  by  one  of  Pestalozzi's  pupils, 
now  for  the  first  time  proceeded  to  the  Baltic. 

The  new  organization  of  the  orphan  home  at  Konigsberg  in  a  short 
time  excited  so  much  interest,  that  a  considerable  number  of  official 
persons  were  desirous  of  some  report  upon  Zeller's  methods  and  or- 
ganization. Further ;  the  noble  and  intellectual  men  who  were  labor- 
ing with  Scharnhorst  to  reestablish  the  warlike  fame  of  Prussia, 
learned  hence  to  consider  the  relation  between  a  correct  school  disci- 
pline and  military  discipline.  October  7,  the  king,  queen  and  minis- 
try, made  a  personal  inspection  of  the  school,  and  the  dignity  of  High 
School  Councillor,  conferred  upon  the  director,  showed  their  gratifica- 
tion with  the  visit.  In  May,  1810,  the  institution  had  so  grown  that 
the  first  course  of  lectures  was  attended  by  a  hundred  and  four 
deans,  superintendents  and  pastors,  and  the  second  by  seventy  clergy- 
men and  teachers. 

In  1811,  he  organized  a  second  institution  at  Braunsberg  for 
province  of  Ermeland,  and  a  third  at  Karalene,  for  Lithuania.  He 
would  gladly  have  remained  in  the  latter  pleasant  place,  but  his  official 
duties  would  not  permit.  He  was  intending  to  go  to  Stettin  also,  but 
the  approach  of  Napoleon's  expedition  to  Russia  prevented.  An  "  ex- 
traordinary compensation  "  was  now  decreed  him,  in  consequence  of 
this  disappointment,  and  as  a  testimony  of  the  satisfaction  of  the  king 
and  the  ministry  with  the  results  of  his  exertions  in  East  and  West 
Prussia  and  Lithuania.  This  was  the  gift  of  the  domain  of  Munster- 
walde,  near  Marienwerder,  on  the  condition  that  he  should  continue  to 
perform  the  functions  of  his  appointment.  He  accordingly  pub- 
lished a  manual  for  the  Prussian  army-schools,  and  a  work  upon  his 
experiments  in  organizing  the  school  of  correction  at  Graudenz,  con- 
taining a  statement  of  the  methods  upon  which  all  his  labors  hitherto 
had  been  conducted. 

For  several  years  Zeller  resided  at  Kreutznach,  Wetzlar  and 
Bonn,  busily  engaged  in  writing  and  in  the  support  of  his  numerous 
family.  His  only  son  devoted  himself  to  the  study  of  theology  at 
Bonn,  and  at  the  same  place,  his  wife,  the  mother  of  his  seven  chil- 
dren, died.  He  became  desirous  of  revisiting  his  native  country ; 
and,  having  been  raised  by  the  King  of  Prussia  to  the  third  class  of 
the  "  red  order  of  nobility,"  he  removed  to  Stuttgart  in  1834.  His 
last  labors  were  devoted  to  his  own  country ;  the  institution  at 

15 


226  KARL   AUGUST   ZELLER. 

Lichtenstein  owes  to  him  its  foundation  and  progress,  a  building 
worth  eleven  hundred  florins,  and  continued  care  and  advocacy.  The 
requirements  of  his  situation  obliged  him  to  remove  to  Stuttgart  again 
in  the  autumn  of  1837. 

His  very  busy  and  varied  life  came  to  an  end  in  the  beginning  of 
the  year  1847,  while  he  was  absent  from  home  on  a  short  journey;  a 
life  that  knew  no  rest,  and  whose  quiet  pulses  often  seemed  like  rest- 
less wandering ;  a  life  which,  without  despising  an  open  recognition 
of  its  deserts,  yet  often  forgot  itself  in  true  sacrifices  for  the  sake  of 
doing  good ;  that  willingly  bestowed  its  strength  wherever  any  benefi- 
cial purpose  was  to  be  served,  and  especially  if  any  alleviations  in  the 
condition  of  the  children  of  the  poor  common  people  were  in  prospect. 
His  mission  was,  not  to  maintain  and  carry  on  an  enterprise  already 
commenced,  with  long-suffering  and  victorious  patience  and  constancy, 
but  rather  to  erect  edifices  upon  waste  and  desert  ground  for  others 
to  furnish.  Especially  valuable  for  young  theologians  are  the  many 
stirring  thoughts  contained  in  his  "Thomas,  or  John  and  Paul?" 
published  in  1833.  The  desire  and  labor  of  his  life  was  to  improve 
the  common  schools.  The  study  of  singing  in  that  class  of  Prussian 
schools  began  with  him.  He  was  energetic,  not  only  in  introducing 
new  discoveries  in  pedagogical  science,  but  also  in  independently  sift- 
ing and  ingeniously  improving  its  principles  already  accepted. 

Zeller's  best  known  educational  works,  as  given  in  Hergang's 
"  Manual  of  Pedagogical  Literature,"  are : 

The  Schoolmaster  School ;  or,  instructions  in  school  education  on 
the  plan  of  the  institutions  for  saving  children  (Kinder-Rettungsan- 
Btalt).  Leipzig,  1839. 

Elementary  Schools;  their  personal,  local  and  administrative  organi- 
zation. Konigsberg,  1815. 

The  Evangel  of  Jesus  Christ ;  or  his  character  as  such ;  not  de- 
veloped chronologically,  but  in  its  various  elements  and  relations ;  as 
exhibited  in  a  harmony  of  the  four  gospels.  Stuttgart,  1839. 

Methods  of  Learning,  for  use  of  common  schools  on  the  mutual 
system. 

Elementary  Geometry  for  Common  Schools.  Three  parts.  Stutt- 
gart, 1839. 

Elementary  Singing-Book  for  Common  Schools.  Three  parts. 
Stuttgart,  1839. 


BEBNHARD   GOTTLIEB  DENZEL, 


BERNHARD  GOTTLIEB  DENZEL,  an  influential  promoter  of  Pestaloz- 
zianism  in  the  Kingdom  of  Wirtemberg  and  the  Duchy  of  Nassau, 
was  born  at  Stuttgardt,  on  the  29th  of  December,  1773.  His  father 
was  a  merchant  and  associate-judge,  and  secured  for  his  son  the  best 
education  which  the  gymnasia  and  university  of  the  kingdom  could 
give.  After  studying  theology  at  Tubingen,  under  the  profound  Dr. 
Storr,  he  commenced  his  pedagogical  career  as  private  tutor  in  Frank- 
fort-on-the-Maine.  After  two  years'  experience  in  that  capacity,  he 
served  five  years  as  curate  and  preacher  in  Pleidelsheim,  where  he 
exhibited  an  enthusiastic  interest  in  the  schools,  and  took  the  lead  in 
introducing  the  new  Pestalozzian  system  into  Wirtemberg.  His  de- 
cided and  influential  labors  in  this  work  involved  him,  for  a  time,  in 
bitter  controversy  with  many  old-fashioned  schoolmasters,  and  munic- 
ipalties ;  but  he  was  sustained  by  the  higher  authorities.  He  made 
himself  perfectly  familiar  with  the  publications  of  Pestalozzi,  and  vis- 
ited both  Burgdorf  and  Yverdun,  to  observe  the  practical  operations 
of  the  system.  Deeply  in  earnest  himself,  with  a  thorough  practical 
knowledge  of  existing  wants,  and  desirable  remedies,  with  a  concil- 
iatory manner,  and  the  confidence  of  all  religious  men,  Denzel  made 
more  rapid  progress  than  is  usual  with  school  reformers  ;  but,  as  has 
been  already  remarked,  he  did  not  entirely  escape  the  opposition  of 
parties  whose  craft  was  interfered  with.  ^ 

In  1811,  Denzel  was  appointed  director  of  the  Seminary  for  Teach- 
ers in  Esslingen,  and  of  the  public  schools  in  that  circle.  Under  his 
oversight,  the  seminary  and  the  schools  made  great  progress,  and  were 
resorted  to  by  teachers  and  educators  as  good  working-models  of  the 
new  system  of  instruction.  In  1817,  having  obtained  leave  of  ab- 
sence for  this  purpose,  he  assisted  in  reorganizing  the  school  system 
of  the  Duchy  of  Nassau,  and  establishing  the  Teachers'  Seminary 
at  Idstein,  and  received,  for  his  service,  the  appointment  of  Ducal^ 
high  school  councilor,  and  the  title  and  rank  of  prelate. 

After  performing  good  service  to  the  cause  of  popular  education 
throughout  Germany,  not  only  through  the  improvements  introduced 
into  the  schools  of  Nassau  and  Wirtemberg,  but  by  his  writings  on 
the  science  and  art  of  teaching,  he  died,  in  the  autumn  of  1838, 
universally  respected  and  beloved. 


228  BERNHARD  GOTTLIEB  DENZEL. 

As  a  teacLer,  Director  Denzel  was  distinguished  by  great  quickness 
and  clearness  of  understanding  and  expression,  and  by  mildness,  firm- 
ness, and  justness  in  discipline.  One  who  was  for  nineteen  years  as- 
sociated with  him  in  the  Seminary  at  Esslingen  says  : — "  Universally 
learned  and  completely  master  of  every  subject  of  instruction  in  the 
schools  with  which  he  was  connected  as  teacher  or  inspector,  his  rare 
knowledge  of  the  best  method  of  communicating  what  he  knew,  en- 
abled him  to  carry  forward  the  best  as  well  as  the  weakest  minds  in 
his  classes,  with  great  satisfaction  to  all,  and  at  the  same  time  to  in- 
spire a  love  of  study,  and  impart  to  others  the  secret  of  his  own  suc- 
cess as  a  teacher."  His  principal  pedagogical  works  are  "  Experiences 
and  Opinions  on  the  Professional  Training  of  Common  School  Teach- 
ers ;  "  "  Tke  Common  School — a  course  of  lectures  on  Methodology  at 
Idstein,  in  1816  ;"  "  Introduction  to  the  Science  and  Art  of  Educa- 
tion and  Instruction  of  Masters  of  Primary  Schools?  The  last 
named  is  a  great  work,  and  holds  a  high  place  in  the  pedagogical 
literature  of  Germany. 


FRIEDRICH  ADOLF   WILHELM  DIESTERWEG. 


FRIEDRICH  ADOLF  WILHELM  DIESTERWEG,  an  eminent  educator, 
and  efficient  promoter  of  the  general  principles  of  Pestalozzi,  was 
born  in  the  then  Rhine  provinces  of  Prussia,  at  Seigen,  in  Nassau, 
October  29th,  1790.  His  first  education  was  received  at  the 
Latin  school  of  his  native  place.  Thence  he  went  to  the  univers- 
ity of  Herborn,  intending  to  devote  himself  to  the  study  of  theol- 
ogy ;  but  his  academic  course  was  finished  at  Tubingen.  At  first  a 
private  tutor  in  Manheim,  he  was  afterward  second  teacher  in  the 
secondary  school  at  Worms  ;  and  in  1811  entered  the  model  school 
at  Frankfort-on-the-Mayne,  where  his  holy  zeal  accomplished  much 
good.  Having  become  known  as  a  scientifically-trained  and  well- 
practiced  educator,  he  was  chosen  second  rector  of  the  Latin  school 
at  Elberfeld.  From  this  place  he  was  called,  in  1820,  to  be  director 
of  the  teachers'  seminary  at  Meurs.  In  this  place  he  labored  with 
intelligence,  energy,  and  singleness  of  purpose,  during  a  series  of 
years,  for  the  cause  of  elementary  instruction,  which,  under  the 
French  domination,  had  been  entirely  neglected  on  the  Rhine.  He 
was,  moreover,  very  useful  as  a  writer— discussing  more  particularly 
mathematics  and  the  German  language.  In  1827,  he  commenced 
publishing  (by  Schwerz,  in  Schwelin,)  the  "  Rhenish  Gazette  of 
Education  and  Instruction  "  (Rheinische  Blatter  fur  Erziebung  und 
Unterricht,)  with  especial  reference  to  the  common  schools.  The  first 
volume  contained  much  valuable  matter,  much  condensed  ;  and  the 
succeeding  volumes  (to  1859,)  have  not  fallen  beneath  it  in  excel- 
lence. Through  this  periodical,  the  educationists  of  the  Rhine  prov- 
inces were  afforded  a  good  opportunity  for  discussing  pedagogical 
subjects ;  upon  which  much  interest  was  then  beginning  to  appear. 

In  1833,  Diesterweg  was  appointed  director  of  the  royal  seminar; 
for  city  teachers,  at  Berlin.  Here  he  labored  for  eighteen  years  ;  his 
eyes  fixed  fast  and  unvarying  upon  his  object — exposing  all  sorts  of 
pedagogical  faults  and  weaknesses,  seeking  in  every  way  to  raise  the 
position  of  teachers,  and  pursuing  his  work  without  any  fear  of  men. 
The  meetings  of  the  Pedagogical  Society  of  Berlin  were  set  on  foot 
by  him.  In  1849,  his  connection  with  the  seminary  was  terminated 
by  the  government,  in  consequence  of  his  popular  sympathies  in 


230  FRIEDRICH  ADOLF  WILIIELM  DIESTERWEG. 

1848.  During  this  period,  Diesterweg  published  "  A utoliogrcqihies 
of  Distinguished  Educators"  "  Education  of  the  Lower  Classes" 
"  Degeneracy  of  our  Universities"  "  Education  for  Patriotism,  d'c." 
"  Controversial  Inquiries  on  Educational  Subjects."  In  these  writ- 
ings, Diesterweg  appears  as  a  man  of  progress  ;  as  one  who  seeks  to 
reconcile  the  existing  discrepancy  between  actual  life  and  learning ; 
between  living  practice  and  dead  scholastic  knowledge ;  between 
civilization  and  learning.  The  works  contain  true  and  striking 
thoughts.  In  his  zeal  for  good  objects,  the  author  sometimes  over- 
passed the  bounds  of  moderation,  and  assailed  the  objects  of  his 
opposition  with  too  much  severity. 

His  " Pedagogical  Travels  through  the  Danish  Territories"  (Piid- 
agogische  Reise  Nachden  Ddnischen  Staaten,)  1836,  involved  him  in 
an  active  controversy  with  several  Danish  literati,  and  especially  with 
Zerrenner,  of  Magdeburg.  Diesterweg's  objections  to  the  monitorial 
system  of  instruction,  which  prevails  in  the  schools  of  Denmark, 
—That  it  modifies,  decreases,  or  destroys  the  teacher's  influence 
upon  his  scholars  ;  that  it  is  disadvantageous  to  their  outward  and 
inward  intercourse ;  reduces  to  a  minimum  the  precious  period  of 
close  intercourse  between  the  ripe  man  and  the  future  men  ;  and 
sinks  the  school,  in  by  far  the  majority  of  cases,  into  a  mere  mindless 
mechanism,  by  which  the  children,  it  is  true,  acquire  facility  in 
reading  and  writing,  and  in  a  manner  outwardly  vivid  and  active, 
but  in  reality  altogether  unintelligent;  but  become  intellectually 
active  not  at  all.  That  Diesterweg  is  in  the  right  in  this  matter,  is 
daily  more  extensively  believed. 

In  ]  846,  Dr.  Diesterweg  took  an  early  and  influential  part  in  the 
celebration  by  German  teachers  of  the  centennial  birthday  of  Pes- 
talozzi,  and  in  founding  an  institution  for  orphans,  as  a  living  and 
appropriate  monument  to  the  great  regenerator  of  modern  popular 
education. 

His  "  Year  Book"  or  " Almanac"  (Jahrbach^)  which  commenced 
in  1851,  is  a  valuable  contribution  to  the  current  discussion  of  educa- 
tional topics,  and  to  the  history  of  the  literature  and  biography  of 
education. 

Diesterweg's  "  Guide  for  German  Teachers"  ( Wegweiser  fur 
Deutschcr  Schrcr,}  of  which  a  third  enlarged  and  improved  edition 
appeared  in  1854,  in  two  large  volumes,  is  one  of  the  best  existing 
manuals  for  teachers,  of  both  elementary  and  high  schools,  and  has 
been  made  a  text-book  in  several  teachers'  seminaries.  We  give  the 
contents  of  this  valuable  "  Guide" 


DIESTERWEG'S  WEGWEISER.  231 

DIESTERWEG,  F.  A.  "W.,  "  Guide  for  German  Teachers,"  Wegweiser  fur  Deuischer 
Schrtr.     2  vols.  pp.  675  and  700. 

CONTENTS.   VOL.   I. 

PAGE. 
INTRODUCTION I. 

1.  Dedication  to  F.  Frobel HI. 

2.  Preface  to  Third  and  Fourth  editions VII. 

3.  From  the  address  to  Denzel,  in  the  Second  edition XIV. 

4.  From  Preface  to  First,  edition XIX. 

5.  From  Preface  to  Second  edition XXIV. 

6.  Conclusion XXXII. 

PART   I. 

GENERAL   VIEWS. 

I.  Purpose  and  problem  of  human  life,  and  the  teacher's  life 3 

II.  What  are  the  conditions  of  success  in  endeavoring  to  secure,  by  means  of  books,  intellect- 
ual culture,  insight,  and  knowledge 19 

III.  Introduction  to  the  study  of  elements  of  pedagogy,  didactics  and  methodology 49 

1.  To  whom  these  studies  are  especially  recommended,  and  to  whom  not 49 

2.  What  has  hitherto  been  accomplished  in  such  books  as  have  been  devoted  to  peda- 

gogy, didactics,  and  methodology  in  general,  or  with  special  reference  to  the  element- 
ary schools 52 

3.  The  chief  constituents  of  the  ideas  of  pedagogy,  didactics,  and  methodology 58 

4.  The  best  works  on  the  elements  of  pedagogy,  didactics,  and  methodology 60 

(1.)  On  education  (and  instruction,)  generally '. 62 

(2.)  On  the  whole  subject  of  school  education  and  instruction i-'2 

(3.)  On  school  discipline 99 

(4.)  Psychology  and  logic 104 

(5.)  Training  of  teachers  (seminaries) 10*7 

(6.)  Education  of  girls Ill 

(7.)  Relations  of  school  to  state  and  church 119 

(80  School  inspection 000 

(9.)  Social  pedagogy,  (social  reforms,  temperance,  &c.) 124 

(10.)  Infant  schools 129 

(11.)  Mutual  system  of  school  organization 135 

(12.)  Higher  burgher  schools 138 

(13.)  Bibliography 143 

(14.)  Works  which  include  biographies 145 

(15.)  Popular  writings 151 

(16.)  School  laws 150 

(17.)  School  reform 157 

(18.)  School  organization  in  1848 162 

(19.)  Periodicals 168 

IV.  Human  faculties,  and  didactics 172 

1.  Rules  for  instruction,  ns  to  the  scholar  (the  subject) 204 

2.  Rules  as  to  what  is  taught  (the  object) 254 

3.  Rules  as  to  external  relations 268 

4.  Rules  as  to  the  teacher 278 

PART   II. 

SPECIAL    DEPARTMENTS. 

I.  Intuitional  instruction;  exercises  in  language 302 

II.  Religious  instruction ;  by  K.  Bormann,  of  Berlin 332 

HI.  Reading ." 381 

IV.  German  language 456 

V.  Writing;  by  Prof.  Dr.  Madler,  and  C.  Reinbott,  of  Berlin 532 

VI.  Singing;  by  Hentschel,  of  Weissenfels 559 

VII.  Drawing  ;  by  Heutschel 672 

VOL.    II. 

VIII.  Geography;  by  K.  Bormann 3 

IX.   History  :  by  W.  Prange,  of  Bunzlau 40 

X.  Natural  History  ;  by  A.  Liiben,  of  Merseburg 251 

XI.  XiiMirnl  Science,  mathematical  geography,  astronomy 306 

XII.  Arithmetic ". 3-13 

XIII.  Geometry 395 

XIV.  French  ;"by  Dr.  Knebel,  of  (Koln)  Cologne 436 

XV.  English  ;  by  Dr.  Schmitz,  of  Berlin 477 

XVI.  Genetic  method  in  foreign  languages;  by  Dr.  Mnger,  of  Eisenach 492 

XVII.  Instruction  of  the  blind  \  by  .1.  G.  Knie,  of  Breslau 567 

XVIII.  Instruction  of  the  deaf-mutes ;  by  Hill,  of  Weissenfels 601 

XIX.  Love  of  country,  patriotism,  and  connected  subjects 675 

XX.  External  situation  of  the  German  common  school  teachers 727 

XXI.  School  discipline— plan  of  teaching  and  of  work 770 

APPENDIX  ;  by  G.  Hentschel 791 

List  of  authors  mentioned 795 


GUSTAV  FRIEDRICH  DINTEE, 

GUST  A  v  FRIEDRICH  DINTER,  whose  life  was  a  beautiful  illustration 
of  his  noble  declaration  in  a  letter  to  Baron  Von  Altenstein — "  I 
promised  God  that  I  would  look  upon  every  Prussian  peasant  child 
as  a  being  who  could  complain  of  me  before  God,  if  I  did  not  pro- 
vide for  him  the  best  education,  as  a  man  and  a  Christian,  which  it 
was  possible  for  me  to  provide" — was  born,  Feb.  29,  1760,  at  Borna, 
in  Saxony,  where  his  father  was  a  lawyer,  with  the  title  of  Chamber- 
Commissary.  Dinter  describes  him  in  his  autobiography  as  a  cheer- 
ful and  lively  man,  whose  most  prominent  trait  was  always  to  look 
upon  the  bright  side  of  things,  and  to  oppose  all  moroseness.  In 
accordance  with  this  character  was  the  bringing  up  which  he  gave 
his  five  sons ;  and  particularly  he  would  not  endure  any  timidity  in 
them,  for  which  Dinter  was  always  grateful  to  him.  He  also 
obliged  them  to  strict  obedience.  His  mother  was  a  woman  of  strict 
religious  character,  careful  foresight,  and  some  vanity,  which  made  her 
particular  about  appearances.  His  father  employed  a  private  tutor 
for  him  ;  but  this  instructor  knew  little  or  nothing  of  pedagogy  or  di- 
dactics, and  his  teaching  looked  to  nothing  except  the  good  appearance 
of  his  scholar  at  examinations.  This  was  very  well  for  the  memory  ;• 
but  his  head  and  heart  would  have  received  little  benefit,  had  it  not 
been  for  the  assistance  of  his  intelligent  mother.  For  example,  Dinter 
had,  when  twelve  years  old,  to  read,  translate,  and  commit  to  mem- 
ory, flutter's  "  Compendium  Theologies?  and  then  recite  it ;  and  to 
lea rn  the  texts  quoted  from  the  New  Testament,  in  the  original  Greek. 

April  27,  1773,  he  was  examined  for  the  national  school  at  Grim- 
ma,  where  he  found  valuable  teachers  in  Rector  Krebs,  Conrector 
Mucke,  and  Cantor  Reich ard.  Miicke  cultivated  carefully  the  relig- 
ious feelings  which  the  boy's  mother  had  implanted  within  him  ;  and 
It ei chard  was  not  only  his  teacher,  but  his  loving  friend.  While  yet 
at  school,  his  excellent  mother  died ;  whose  loss  he  mourned  even 
when  grown  up.  In  April,  1779,  Dinter  left  the  school  at  Grimma, 
and  passed  the  interval  of  time,  before  entering  the  university  at 
Leipzig,  partly  with  his  brother,  and  partly  with  his  godfather,  Super- 
intendent Rickfels.  In  Leipzig,  he  almost  overburdened  himself  with 
hearing  lectures,  during  his  first  two  years :  attending,  especially, 
Dathe,  Ernesti,  Moms,  and  Platner.  For  want  of  a  competent  guide, 


GUSTAV  FIUEDRICII  DINTER.  233 

he  fell  into  wrong  directions  in  many  studies,  as  is  often  the  case.  His 
sentiments,  at  a  later  day,  upon  the  studies  of  the  university,  were 
thus  expressed  : — "  It  is  not  necessary  that  the  scholar  should  learn, 
in  special  lessons,  all  that  he  is  to  know.  Let  him  only  have  the 
ability,  and  take  pleasure  in  his  studies,  and  let  the  sources  of  assist- 
ance be  pointed  out  to  him,  and  he  will  accomplish  more  for  himself 
than  all  the  lessons  and  lectures  will  do  for  him." 

Even  in  his  student  years,  the  study  of  men  was  a  favorite  pursuit 
with  him.  He  had  a  great  love  for  the  theater  ;  and  says,  regarding 
it : — "  For  young  theologians,  the  drama  is  very  useful.  It  furnishes 
them  declamatory  knowledge.  Not  that  they  are  to  theatricalize  in 
the  pulpit ;  but  at  the  play  they  may  acquire  a  feeling  for  modulations 
of  voice,  for  strength  and  feebleness  of  accent,  and  an  animated 
style  of  delivery.  Young  theologians,  attend  the  theater  industri- 
ously, if  it  is  convenient.  You  will  get  much  more  good  there  than 
at  the  card-table.  But  the  plays  may  be  judiciously  selected."  He 
laments  much  over  his  incapacity  for  music.  "  I  unwillingly  find  my- 
self deprived  of  a  pleasure  which  would  have  added  to  the  enjoyments 
of  my  life,  and  would  have  rendered  cheerful  my  troubled  days, 
which,  thank  God,  have  been  few." 

After  leaving  Leipzig,  he  passed  his  examination  for  the  ministry, 
receiving  a  first-class  certificate,  and  became  the  private  tutor  in  the 
family  of  Chamberlain  von  Pollnitz.  The  years  of  his  candidateship 
Dinter  passed  in  studying  clergy,  schoolmasters,  and  people  ;  a  pur- 
suit which  has  often  cheered,  taught,  animated,  and  warned  him. 
The  common  people  liked  him,  and  had  confidence  in  him,  listening 
to  his  preaching  with  pleasure,  and  he  spoke  kindly  to  every  child 
whom  he  met.  Thus  Dinter  entered  upon  the  duties  of  the  pastorate, 
not  ill  prepared  by  his  experience  as  a  private  tutor  ;  and  he  considers 
this  intermediate  training  as  far  from  useless.  In  such  a  place,  the 
young  man  weans  himself  from  his  student-habits,  and  learns  to  ac- 
commodate himself  to  the  ways  of  the  people  amongst  whom  he  is 
probably  to  live ;  studies  the  pastors  and  the  gentry ;  and  collects  a 
thousand  experiences  which  will  be  of  the  greatest  use  to  him,  and 
which  can  not  be  learned  out  of  books.  He  must,  however,  be  careful 
not  to  be  warped  by  the  influences  of  the  great  house,  to  become 
accustomed  to  indulgences  which  his  future  scanty  income  will  not 
allow  him,  nor  to  a  style  so  lofty  that  his  farmers  will  not  understand 
it.  To  this  end  he  must  devote  his  leisure  to  the  pastors,  the  school- 
masters, and  the  people.  Dinter  became  a  pastor  in  1787,  at  Kit- 
scher,  a  village  in  the  government  of  Borna,  with  three  hundred 
inhabitants  ;  to  the  entire  satisfaction  of  his  wishes.  lie  was  now  a 


234  GUSTAV  FRIEDRICH  PINTER. 

village  pastor,  as  he  had  so  often  desired  to  be.  The  village  be- 
longed to  lieutenant-colonel  Baron  von  Niebeker,  a  very  benevolent 
man,  who  sympathized  with  all  in  misfortune  ;  and  Dinter  came  into 
most  friendly  relations  with  him.  As  a  preacher,  his  pastoral  influence 
accomplished  much,  and  so  did  his  truly  and  eminently  practical 
character.  In  preaching,  this  thought  was  continually  before  him ; 
the  handicraftsman  and  the  farmer  have,  usually,  but  this  one  day  to 
devote  to  the  cultivation  of  head  and  heart,  and  the  country  pastor 
should  shape  his  efforts  accordingly.  While  a  tutor,  he  had  adopted, 
as  his  models  in  preaching,  Christ's  sermon  on  the  mount,  and  Paul's 
discourse  at  Athens ;  not  merely  in  the  sense  of  becoming  an  extem- 
poraneous speaker,  but  in  the  spirit  of  his  discourse.  He  never 
preached  "without  careful  preparation.  He  usually  began  to  consider 
on  the  Sunday,  his  next  Sunday's  subject ;  and  he  reflected  upon  it 
from  time  to  time,  during  his  walks,  for  example ;  and  on  Friday  he 
first  wrote  down  the  connected  substance  of  the  discourse,  in  one 
whole,  as  it  were  at  one  gush.  During  the  ten  years  of  his  first 
pastorate,  he  thought  out  almost  all  his  sermons  word  by  word,  and 
learned  them  so.  He  never  read  a  sermon.  At  a  later  period,  when 
the  increase  of  his  occupations  disenabled  him  from  using  the  time 
necessary  for  this  purpose,  he  often  had  to  content  himself  with  deter- 
mining the  divisions  of  his  subject;  which  made  him  sometimes 
preach  too  long.  (  He  relates  that  he  learned  to  preach  popularly  from 
his  maid-servant,  who  had  a  strong  common-sense  understanding, 
without  much  knowledge ;  and  he  often  read  large  portions  of  his 
discourse  to  her,  on  Friday  evenings,  to  see  whether  it  were  clear  to 
her  mind.  In  his  first  pastorate,  he  confined  his  choice  of  subjects 
mostly  to  the  evangelists  ;  but  afterward,  especially  after  his  acquaint- 
ance with  Reinhard,he  alternated  from  them  to  the  epistles,  and  other 
scriptures. 

During  this  period,  his  labors  as  school-overseer  were  also  very 
useful ;  instruction  having  been  his  favorite  pursuit  since  his  fourteenth 
year.  School  conferences  were  then  neither  established  in  Saxony, 
nor  usual.  Of  his  own  three  school-teachers,  each  was  too  old  for 
improvement.  Dinter  accordingly  spent,  at  first,  only  two  half- 
days  per  week  in  the  school.  He  himself  took  charge  of  religious 
instruction  and  arithmetic  ;  leaving  to  the  teachers  only  the  repetition 
of  the  lessons  in  the  former,  and  the  necessary  drilling  in  the  latter. 
His  farmers'  children  became  a  credit  and  a  pleasure  to  him  ;  they 
learned  to  take  notes  of  his  sermons,  to  understand  their  contents, 
and  to  take  pleasure  in  them.  The  confirmation  he  made  the  great 
festival  of  the  year.  As  to  his  other  relations  with  his  congregation, 


GUSTAV  FRIEDRICH  DINTER.  035 

he  did  not  live  in  a  haughty  seclusion  from  them,  but  followed  them, 
like  a  father,  into  their  own  habitations.  He  entered  no  house  where 
the  family  was  in  bad  repute,  but  visited  all  others  without  distinction 
of  rich  or  poor.  Thus  he  gradually  acquired  an  intimate  knowledge 
of  their  every-day  life,  and  was  enabled  to  say  many  things  to  them 
which  would  not  have  been  suitable  for  the  pulpit.  He  gained  an 
influence  upon  their  modes  of  disciplining  their  children,  and  corrected 
many  defects  in  it.  Thus  also  he  came  to  be  considered  an  intimate 
family  friend  of  all,  and  was  frequently  called  upon  to  act  as  umpire 
in  family  quarrels ;  so  that  he  was  enabled  to  bring  peace  into  many 
families.  He  was  no  less  assiduous  toward  the  sick,  whom  he  visited 
without  being  summoned  ;  making  it  his  rule  to  visit  any  whose 
illness  was  serious,  daily  if  near  at  hand,  and  thrice  a  week  if  more 
distant ;  but,  for  obvious  reasons,  he  was  not  able  to  continue  this 
practice.  Thus,  by  words  and  deeds,  he  accomplished  much  good. 
But  Providence  had  marked  out  for  him  another  and  wider  sphere  of 
action,  which  estranged  him,  for  a  time,  from  the  duties  of  the  minis- 
try. Instruction,  as  we  have  remarked,  being  his  favorite  pursuit,  he 
had  established  in  Kitscher  a  sort  of  seminary,  for  the  training  of 
young  people  as  teachers.  This  institution  soon  gained  a  reputation, 
and  was  the  occasion  of  an  invitation  from  first  court-chaplain  Rein- 
hard,  to  become  director  of  the  teachers'  seminary  at  Friedrichstadt, 
near  Dresden.  Dinter  accepted,  although  the  duties  of  the  place  were 
greater  and  the  salary  less  than  at  Kitscher,  from  mere  love  for 
education  ;  although  there  was  mutual  grief  at  his  parting  with  his 
congregation.  About  this  time,  some  sorrows  came  upon  him  :  the 
death  of  a  brother,  and  of  his  excellent  father,  who  left  the  world  with 
as  much  calmness  as  he  had  shown  in  enjoying  it.  He  refused  to 
admit  his  confessor,  saying,  "One  who  has  not  learned  to  die  in  sev- 
entv-five  years,  can  not  learn  it  from  him  now." 

Reinhard,  with  satisfaction,  introduced  Dinter  into  his  new  place 
of  labor,  Oct.  21,  1797.  The  latter  remained  true  to  his  principle, 
"Not  the  multiplicity  of  knowledge  makes  the  skillful  teacher,  but  the 
clearness  and  thoroughness  of  it,  and  skill  in  communicating  it."  As 
to  his  intercourse  with  the  pupils  of  the  seminary,  his  rule  was  this  : 
"The  seminarist  is  no  longer  a  boy  ;  he  is  a  youth,  who  will  in  a  few 
years  be  a  teacher.  It  is  by  a  distinct  set  of  means,  therefore,  that 
he  must  be  taught.  These  are  Freedom,  Work,  Love,  and  Religion." 
In  the  first  of  these  particulars  he  may  have  been  sometimes  too 
late ;  but  he  can  not  be  charged  with  neglect.  He  expended  much 
labor  and  time  in  Bible  lessons ;  professing  that  religious  knowledge 
should  be  gained,  not  from  the  catechism,  but  from  the  original  sources. 


236  GUSTAV  FRIEDRICH  D1NTER. 

In  arithmetic,  liis  rule  was,  "Where  the  scholar  can  help  himself,  the 
teacher  must  not  help  him ;"  for  fear  of  making  lazy  scholars.  In 
reading,  he  did  not  use  Olivier's  method,  then  in  high  repute,  but  a 
simplification  of  that  of  Stephan.  He  somewhat  erred,  at  first,  in  his 
'practice  of  Pestalozzian  principles,  adhering  too  exclusively  to  mere 
forms ;  but  he  soon  perceived  the  mistake,  and  proceeded  in  the  gen- 
uine spirit  of  that  distinguished  teacher,  without  his  diffuseness.  He 
believed  that  "  Pestalozzi  was  king  of  the  lower  classes,  and  Socrates 
of  the  higher."  Under  Dinter's  direction,  the  seminary  became  very 
prosperous. 

But  Dinter  was  not  to  remain  always  in  this  sphere  of  labor. 
Providence  had  destined  him  for  another  and  a  higher,  although  by 
a  road  which  at  first  seemed  retrograde.  He  fell  very  sick  with  a 
violent  jaundice,  which  endangered  his  life;  and,  at  his  recovery, 
feeling  still  unable  to  perform  the  duties  of  his  office  without  an  as- 
sistant, whom  the  salary  would  not  permit  him  to  employ,  he  accept- 
ed again,  in  1807,  a  situation  as  country  clergyman  at  Gornitz,  a  vil- 
lage with  a  hundred  and  twenty  inhabitants,  also  in  the  government 
of  Borna.  He  was  received  at  Gornitz  with  pleasure,  as  the  son  of 
the  former  justiciary  of  Lobstadt,  whose  jurisdiction  had  included 
Gornitz ;  and  here  again  he  established  an  educational  institution — a 
sort  of  progymnasium,  in  which  he  appointed  one  of  his  former  semi- 
nary pupils,  assistant. 

Besides  these  manifold  labors,  Dinter's  productions  as  a  writer 
gained  a  large  circle  of  readers.  His  works  made  him  well  known 
abroad  ;  and  thus  the  humble  village  pastor  unexpectedly  received  an 
invitation  to  Konigsberg,  in  Prussia,  to  the  place  of  school  and  con- 
sistorial  counselor,  which  he  accepted,  in  his  fifty-seventh  year.  His 
official  duty  there  was  a  singular  union  of  the  most  different  employ- 
ments. He  was  obliged  to  consult  with  superintendents,  to  examine 
candidates  for  the  ministry  and  for  schools,  to  read  Sophocles  and 
Euripides  with  gymnasium  graduates,  to  adjust  a  general  literary 
-course  with  the  royal  assessors,  as  member  of  the  commission  for  mili- 
tary examinations,  to  determine  whether  one  person  and  another  was 
entitled  to  claim  for  one  year's  service,  and  to  be  ready  to  explain  to 
the  teachers  of  the  lowest  schools  whether  and  why  the  alphabetical 
or  the  sound-method  was  preferable.  His  thoroughly  practical  mind, 
however,  enabled  him  to  fulfill  these  many  duties  with  efficiency  and 
•usefulness.  His  chief  object  was  the  improvement  of  the  common 
school  system ;  which  he  found  not  in  the  best  condition  in  East 
Prussia.  His  first  effort  was  to  accomplish  as  much  as  possible 
through  the  medium  of  the  ignorant  and  inefficient  teachers  already 


QUSTAV  FRIEDRICII  DINTER.  237 

employed.  He  made  distinctions  between  country  schools,  city 
schools,  seminaries,  gymnasia,  &c.,  and  adapted  his  management  to 
the  peculiar  needs  of  each.  In  the  country  schools  he  found  much  to 
blame ;  but  was  careful  not  to  find  fault  with  the.  teachers  in  the 
presence  of  their  scholars,  or  of  the  municipal  authorities.  His  only 
exceptions  to  this  rule  were  two ;  where  the  teacher  attempted  to  de- 
ceive him,  and  where  the  school  was  in  so  bad  a  condition  that  to 
retain  the  teacher  would  be  an  injury  to  the  next  generation.  He 
was  able  to  judge  of  the  spirit  of  a  school  by  a  single  recitation  ; 
and  was  accustomed  to  jildge,  from  the  prayer  and  the  singing,  wheth- 
er the  teacher  possessed,  and  was  able  to  communicate,  a3sthetical  ' 
training,  or  not.  Prayer  in  school  he  valued  highly ;  and  attached 
much  importance  to  tone  and  accent  in  reading,  as  an  indication  of 
cultivated  understanding  and  feeling.  Intuitions  for  higher  and  lower 
classes  were  suitably  kept  distinct ;  and  special  attention  was  paid  to 
orphan  homes  and  teachers'  seminaries.  He  also  improved  and  ex- 
tended the  instruction  of  the  deaf  and  dumb. 

He  declined  a  call  to  Kiel  as  regular  professor ;  and,  in  consider- 
ation of  this,  received  from  the  Prussian  government  an  extraordinary 
professorship  of  theology,  with  a  salary  of  two  hundred  thalers  (about 
$150,)  and  the  assurance  that  in  a  future  emeritus  appointment,  not 
the  years,  but  the  quality,  of  his  labor,  should  be  considered.  The 
German  Society,  and  the  society  for  maintaining  poor  scholars  at  gym- 
nasia, elected  him  member.  As  an  academical  teacher,  Dinter  lec- 
tured upon  the  pastoral  charge  and  upon  homiletics,  as  well  as  upon 
popular  dogmatics  and  catechetics ;  in  which  his  own  practical  expe- 
rience as  pastor  and  seminary  director  assisted  him  materially.  He 
also  conducted  disputations  and  exercises  in  exegesis.  He  selected 
such  subjects  as  required  careful  preparation  on  his  own  part ;  e.  g., 
the  Revelation  of  St.  John,  some  subject  connected  with  the  Hebrew 
language,  aBsthetics,  <fec.  His  plan  was,  however,  not  to  train  slaves 
to  his  opinions,  but  independent  thinkers ;  and,  in  his  private  courses 
with  students,  his  object  was  the  same. 

Dinter's  influence  as  a  writer  was  great ;  although  his  first  appear- 
ance in  that  capacity  was  rather  late. 

We  add  a  few  words  upon  the  private  life  of  this  remarkable  man. 
His  life,  as  a  whole,  may  be  called  cheerful  and  happy ;  in  sixty-nine 
years  he  was  seriously  ill  only  five  times.  He  lived  very  simply  and 
regularly.  He  was  never  married,*  but  adopted  a  son,  and  educated 

*  While  yet  a  student,  he  became  acquainted  with  a  fatherless  child,  Friederike  Pack,  daugh- 
ter of  the  late  pastor  of  Raschan,  of  whom  he  says,  in  his  autobiography.  "  My  heart  was  en- 
tirely hers  on  the  first  day  I  saw  her.  It  was  not  her  beauty,  but  her  unaffected  goodness 
and  unconscious  innocence,  which  bound  me  to  her."  Dinter,  however,  never  had  the  hap- 
piness of  calling  her  his  own.  She  died  early  ;  and  even  to  his  old  aye  he  mourned  her  loss. 


238  GUSTAV  FRIEDRICH  DINTER. 

his  brothers.  He  suffered  a  severe  misfortune  by  a  fire  in  Gornitz, 
which,  in  his  absence,  burnt  the  parsonage,  destroying  not  only  his 
worldly  property,  but  his  intellectual  treasures — his  library  and  many 
valuable  manuscripts.  He  had  only  sixty  thalers  left  in  money.  A 
second  was  being  plundered  by  the  Cossacks  a  few  days  before  the 
battle  of  Leipzig.  His  age,  however,  was  entirely  cheerful  and  happy. 
He  wrote,  "  I  can  wish  you  no  better  wish  than  that  God  may  grant  you 
such  an  old  age  as  mine  has  hitherto  been.  I  am  healthy,  can  work 
eighty-three  hours  a  week,  and  am  commonly  as  fresh  at  ten  at  night 
as  I  was  in  the  morning.  I  often  write  on  Sundays,  even  in  the  short 
winter  days,  thirteen  hours,  without  spectacles  and  without  fatigue. 
My  superiors,  in  both  consistory  and  civil  government,  comply  with 
all  my  reasonable  wishes.  My  pupils  still  love  -the  old  man  who 
sometimes  forgets  the  difference  in  their  ages.  Good  teachers  see  me 
coming  with  pleasure ;  and  lazy  ones  fear  me,  as  an  appointer  of  sub- 
stitutes, and  get  the  'inspection-fever.'  Without  being  actually  rich, 
I  have  enough,  and  have  always  something  for  others  ;  and  I  look  fear- 
lessly upon  death,  having  hopes  for  the  future."  So  strong  an  old 
man  might  have  looked  forward  to  an  age  of  eighty  or  ninety  years ; 
but  Providence  had  determined  otherwise. 

During  a  tour  of  inspection,  in  the  spring  of  1831,  in  which  he  ex- 
erted himself  as  much  as  usual,  he  caught  a  fatal  cold,  under  the 
result  of  which  he  sank,  May  29,  1831.  His  unexpected  death  was 
much  lamented  throughout  Germany  ;  for  he  was  yet  capable  of 
much  more  usefulness,  and  was  rather  a  citizen  of  all  Germany  than 
of  any  one  nation  in  it.  Even  his  adversaries  were  obliged  to  confess 
that  in  him  was  lost  one  of  the  most  active,  learned,  and  skillful  edu- 
cators and  teachers  of  the  world ;  who  labored  unweariedly  for  the 
realization  of  his  great  ideas,  and  worked  as  long  as  his  day  lasted. 
His  memory  will  be  revered  as  long  as  education  and  instruction 
shall  be  recognized  as  the  first  blessings  of  the  human  race. 


PART    II. 
SELECTIONS 

fnm  tjrB  ^tthliratintts  nf 


CONTENTS. 


PART  II. 
SELECTIONS  FROM  THE  PUBLICATIONS  OF  PESTALOZZI. 

Preface, 1 

I.  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE;    or  a  Book  for  the  People,     As  first  published  in 

German  in  1781, 9 

Notice  of  subsequent  additions,         •        •        •        •        .-        .        ...        .  135 

The  School  in  Bonnal, 137 

II.  CHRISTOPHER  AND  ALICE,    - 

School  and  Home  Education  compared, 151 

III.  THK  EVENIN  ;  HOUR  OF  A  HERMIT.     The  Programme  or  Key  to  Pestalo/zi's  Edu- 

cational Labors.     First  published  in  German  in  1780, 154 

IV.  A  CHRISTMAS  EVE.  DISCOUHSE.    Delivered  by  Pestalozzi  to  his  Family  School 

on  the  34rh  of  December,  J8iO, 166 

V.  NEW  YEARS  ADDRESS,  1803, 175 

VI.  SEVENTY-SECOND  BIRTHDAY  ADDRESS. 178 

VII.  How  GERTRUDE  TEACHES  HER  CHILDREN, 171 

Notice, 183 

Pe*;talozzi,  account  of  his  educational  experience, 185 

Meihods  of  Elementary  Instruction, -                 -        -  189 

Modifications  of.  by  British  Home  and  Colonial  Infant,  and  Juvenile  Sch'l  Society,  217 
VIII.  PATERNAL  INSTRUCTIONS.     A  Bequest  of  Father  Pestalozzi  to  his  Tupiis.    Edited 

by  Kriisi.    Extracts,     ----- ii28 


PREFACE. 


THE  choice  of  selections  from  the  works  of  Pestalozzi  is  rendered  diffi- 
cult by  the  character  of  the  mind  that  produced  them.  Taken  as  a  whole, 
they  display  remarkable  powers  of  observation,  considerable  insight  into 
the  operations  of  the  mind  and  feelings,  great  appreciation  of  character, 
and  a  graphic  and  forcible  style.  But  to  select  from  their  whole  extent 
portions  which  shall  give  a  connected  view  of  his  principles,  is  almost  im- 
possible, from  the  fact  that  his  mind  was  strongly  intuitional  in  tendency 
and  habit,  and  rapid  and  impulsive  in  action,  and  that  his  powers  of  re- 
flection, combination,  and  logical  expression  were  not  correspondingly 
great.  Thus  he  often  said  too  much  or  too  little ;  was  contradictory  or 
inconsistent ;  and  has  nowhere,  even  where  expressly  undertaking  to  do 
it,  as  in  "How  Gertrude  Teaches  Her  Children  "  given  an  adequate 
presentation  of  his  principles  or  practice. 

"Leonard  and  Gertrude"  is  presented  as  the  book  which,  more  than 
any  other  one  work,  was  the  foundation  of  Pestalozzi's  fame,  and  as  in 
itself  to  the  present  generation  a  new  and  interesting  picture  of  life  in 
the  German  Swiss  villages  of  the  last  half  of  the  last  century.  It 
has  also  additional  value  as  containing  many  of  the  author's  views 
on  educational  and  social  questions,  although  diffused  throughout 
the  work. 

A  brief  extract  from  "Christopher  and  Alice"  is  given,  sufficient  to 
exhibit  the  mode  of  treatment  of  the  subject.  The  work  was  compara- 
tively a  failure,  and  has  moreover  little  interest  to  readers  in  this  country 
and  this  age,  being  closely  and  exclusively  local  in  aim. 

"  The  Evening  Hour  of  a  Hermit"  is  termed  by  Karl  von  Raumer 
"  the  key  of  Pestalozzi's  educational  views."  And  Pestalozzi  himself 
observed,  in  his  old  age,  that  even  at  the  early  date  of  its  composition, 
he  had  already  arrived  at  the  fundamental  principles  which  controlled  the 
labors  and  expositions  of  all  his  subsequent  life. 

The  various  addresses  from  which  extracts  are  next  given  are  interest- 
ing as  affording  a  view  of  one  mode  of  communication  between  Pesta- 
lozzi and  his  associates.  They  are  doubtless  freer  and  more  spontaneous 
expressions  of  his  peculiar  modes  of  thought  and  feeling  than  his  more 
formal  expositions. 

"How  Gertrude  Teaches  Her  Children"  was  intended  by  Pestalozzi 
to  give  a  logical  and  connected  view  of  his  methods  of  instruction,  in 

16 


2  PREFACE. 

some  detail.  The  extracts  presented  embody  the  most  important 
portion  of  the  work,  and  exhibit  also  some  of  his  characteristic  defects 
in  arrangement  and  exposition. 

The  extracts  from  the  "Paternal  Instructions  "  are  valuable  as  a  speci- 
men of  a  mode  of  combining  instruction  in  language  with  sound  lessons 
in  morals ;  upon  a  principle  which  Pestalozzi  carried  very  far  in  theory, 
and  to  a  great  extent  in  practice ;  namely,  that  of  teaching  through  one 
and  the  same  vehicle,  if  possible,  in  the  departments  both  of  intellect  and 
morals. 

The  London  translation  of  "Leonard  and  Gertrude"  with  corrections, 
has  been  followed  in  that  work,  except  in  the  extracts  added  from  the 
subsequently  written  part  of  the  book.  The  liberty  has  been  taken  of 
extracting  from  Dr.  Biber's  valuable  biography  of  Pestalozzi,  his  transla- 
tion from  "Christopher  and  Alice,"  and  from  the  "Paternal  Instructions." 
The  "Evening  Hour  of  a  Hermit"  the  extracts  from  the  second  part  of 
"Leonard  and  Gertrude"  and  from  "How  Gertrude  Teaches  Her  Children" 
and  the  several  addresses  of  Pestalozzi,  were  translated  by  FREDERICK  B. 
PERKINS,  Esq.,  of  Hartford,  Librarian  of  the  Connecticut  Historical  So- 
ciety ;  and  are  from  Cotta's  edition  of  Pestalozzi's  works,  Von  Raumer's 
"History  of  Education,"  or  Christofiel's  "Life  and  Views." 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 


PREFACE 

TO    THE    FIRST    EDITION. 


EEADER— In  the  following  pages  I  have  attempted,  through  the  medium  of  a  tale, 
to  communicate  some  important  truths  to  the  people,  in  the  way  most  likely  to 
make  an  impression  upon  their  understandings  and  their  feelings. 

It  has  also  been  my  endeavor,  to  ground  both  the  tale  and  the  instructions 
derived  from  it,  upon  the  most  careful  imitation  of  nature,  and  upon  the  simple 
description  of  what  is  every  where  to  be  found. 

In  what  is  here  related,  (the  greatest  part  of  which  I  have,  in  the  course  of  an 
active  life,  myself  observed,)  I  have  been  careful  never  to  set  down  my  own  opin- 
ions, instead  of  what  I  have  seen  and  heard  the  people  themselves  feel,  judge,  stiy, 
and  attempt. 

If  my  observations  be  just,  and  if  I  have  been  successful  in  my  endeavor  to 
give  them  with  the  simplicity  of  truth,  they  will  be  well  received  by  all  those, 
before  whose  eyes  the  things  which  I  relate  are  continually  passing.  If  they  be 
false,  if  they  be  the  creatures  of  my  imagination,  the  trifles  of  my  own  bruin, 
they  will,  like  other  Sunday  discourses,  be  forgotten  on  the  Monday. 

I  will  say  no  more,  except  to  add  two  passages  which  appear  calculated  to  illus- 
trate my  opinions  as  to  the  means  to  be  adopted  for  a  wise  instruction  of  the 
people. 

The  first  is  from  a  work  of  our  immortal  Luther ;  every  line  of  whose  pen 
breathes  humanity,  insight  into  the  character  of  the  people,  and  a  desire  to  in- 
struct them.  lie  says : — 

"The  holy  scriptures  are  so  graciously  adapted  to  our  wants,  that  they  do  not 
tell  us  merely  of  the  great  deeds  of  holy  men,  but  also  relate  their  common  dis- 
course, and  disclose  to  us  the  inmost  motives  and  principles  of  their  hearts." 

The  second  is  from  the  writings  of  a  Jewish  Rabbi,  and,  according  to  a  Latin 
translation,  is  as  follows  : — 

"  There  were  amongst  the  heathen  nations,  who  dwelt  round  about  the  inherit- 
ance of  Abraham,  men  full  of  wisdom,  whose  equals  were  not  to  be  found  far  or 
near.  These  said :  '  Let  us  go  to  the  kings  and  to  their  great  men,  and  teach  them 
how  to  make  the  people  happy  upon  the  earth.' 

'•  And  the  wise  men  went  out,  and  learned  the  language  of  the  houses  of  the 
khiijfs  and  of  their  great  men,  and  spoke  to  the  kings  and  to  their  great  men,  in 
their  own  language. 

••  And  the  kings  and  the  great  men  praised  the  wise  men,  and  gave  them  gold, 
and  silk,  and  frankincense;  but  treated  the  people  as  before.  And  the  wise  men 
were  blinded  by  the  gold,  and  the  silk,  and  the  frankincense,  and  no  longer  saw 
that  the  kimr*  and  the  great  men  behaved  ill  and  foolishly  to  all  the  people  who 
lived  upon  the  earth. 

"But  a  man  of  our  nation  reproved  the  wise  men  of  the  heathens,  and  was 
kind  to  the  beggar  upon  the  highway ;  and  took  the  children  of  the  thief,  of  the 


6 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 


sinner,  and  of  the  exile,  into  his  house ;  and  saluted  the  tax-gatherers,  and  the 
soldiers,  and  the  Samaritans,  as  if  they  had  been  brethren  of  his  own  tribe. 

"And  his  deeds,  and  his  poverty,  and  the  long-suffering  of  his  love  toward  all 
men  won  him  the  hearts  of  the  people,  so  that  they  trusted  him  as  a  father.  And 
when  the  man  of  Israel  saw  that  all  the  people  trusted  him  as  a  father,  he  taught 
the  people  wherein  their  true  happiness  lay ;  and  the  people  heard  his  voice,  and 
the  princes  heard  the  voice  of  the  people." 

Such  is  the  story  of  the  Eabbi,  to  which  I  will  not  add  a  single  .observation. 

And  now  must  these  pages  go  forth,  from  my  peaceful  home,  into  a  world 
where  the  winds  arise  and  the  tempests  blow,  and  where  no  peace  is.  May  they 
•  be  preserved  from  the  storms  of  evil. 

I  take  no  part  in  the  disputes  of  men  about  opinions,  but  I  think  all  will  agree, 
that  whatever  makes  us  pious,  good,  true,  and  brotherly,  whatever  cherishes  the 
love  of  God  and  of  our  neighbor,  and  whatever  brings  happiness  and  peace  into 
our  houses,  should  be  implanted  in  the  hearts  of  all,  for  our  common  good. 

THE  AUTHOK. 

FEBBUABT  25*A   1781. 


PREFACE 

TO    THE    SECOND    E-DITION. 


THIS  book,  which  was  written  more  than  twenty  years  ago,  I  now  again  present 
to  my  readers,  without  alteration,  as  it  first  came  from  my  pen.  It  was  an  attempt 
to  describe  the  condition  of  the  people,  according  to  what  I  had  learned  from  my 
own  immediate  observation ;  and,  by  giving  this  description,  to  point  out  the 
means  of  really  benefiting  them.  It  has  interested  many,  procured  me  many 
friends,  and  excited  in  many  mothers  the  wish  to  be  to  their  children  what  Ger- 
trude was  to  hers.  But  to  the  age  in  general,  my  observations  were  not,  and 
could  not,  be  palatable.  The  ruling  maxims  of  the  latter  half  of  the  past  century, 
were  almost  altogether  deficient  in  the  simplicity  of  strength,  and  in  the  strength 
of  simplicity.  They  aimed  at  a  high  stretch  of  knowledge ;  but  man,  as  a  whole, 
remained  ignorant,  arrogant,  and  enslaved.  Trusting  in  the  extent  of  his  knowl- 
edge, he,  as  it  were,  lost  himself.  It  was  a  misfortune  to  the  race  of  men,  during 
this  century,  that,  by  this  extension  of  their  knowledge,  they  were  prevented 
from  seeing  that  they  lived  without  real  strength  or  stability ;  and,  by  this  self- 
deception,  they  lost  all  feeling  for  the  truth  and  greatness  of  the  simple  relations 
of  nature  and  society.  In  these  circumstances,  it  was  natural  that  my  book  should 
fail  in  its  chief  object;  which  was,  by  pointing  out  the  real  situation  of  the  people, 
and  their  natural  and  durable  connections  with  each  other,  to  lay  a  foundation 
for  their  progressive  improvement.  As  a  representation  of  the  nature  of 
domestic  education,  my  book  produced  no  eifect ;  but  made  an  impression  chiefly 
as  a  tale.  True  to  the  object  of  my  life,  I  persevered  in  endeavoring  to  lead  the 
attention  of  my  country  to  the  aim  of  the  book,  whilst  I,  at  the  same  time,  labored 
to  place  myself  in  a  situation  which  might  enable  me  to  offer  to  mothers  and 
teachers,  the  means  by  which  they  might  bring  up  their  children  according  to  its 
spirit. 

All  I  have  hitherto  eifected,  is  but,  as  it  were,  a  continuation  of  the  book  itself, 
which  I  now  again  present  to  my  readers.  May  it  be  received  as  kindly  as  before ! 
It  was  my  first  address  to  the  poor  and  desolate  of  the  land.  It  was  my  first  ad- 
dress to  those  who  stand  in  the  place  of  God  to  them.  It  was  my  first  address  to 
mothers,  and  to  the  hearts  which  God  has  given  them,  to  induce  them  to  be  to 
their  children  what  no  one  else  can  be  to  them.  May  it  be  to  the  poor  a  greater 
blessing  than  it  has  yet  been !  May  it  make  upon  those  who  stand  in  the  place 
of  God  to  them,  the  impression  which  it  must  make,  before  it  can  become  a  bless- 
ing to  the  poor  and  desolate !  May  many  mothers,  through  its  influence,  become 
to  their  children  what  none  can  be  in  their  stead !  Let  people  say  what  they  will, 
nature,  and  God  its  eternal  Creator,  have  left  nothing  wanting.  It  is  blasphemy 
to  maintain  that  mothers  have  no  desire  to  devote  themselves  to  their  children. 
Let  people  say  what  they  will,  I  am  full  of  trust  in  this  desire,  and  full  of  hope 
for  the  consequences  which  the  excitement  of  it  will  produce.  The  greatest  cor- 
ruption which  can  arise  from  the  errors  of  man,  does  not  entirely  destroy  human 
nature.  Its  strength  is  inextinguishable !  Go  into  the  poorest  hut,  and  see  there 


3  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

what  a  mother's  heart,  almost  without  means  or  help,  can  do  for  her  children.  It 
is  equally  false  to  say  that  mothers  have  no  time  to  attend  to  the  first  formation 
of  the  minds  and  feelings  of  their  children.  Most  of  them,  particularly  those 
who  live  at  home,  have  their  children  with  them  a  great  part  of  the  day ;  and 
why  can  not  they,  whilst  they  are  at  work,  as  well  behave  to  them,  and  talk  to 
them,  in  a  way  which  will  instruct  and  improve  them,  as  in  one  which  will  do 
neither?  A  mother's  instruction  requires  no  art.  It  is  nothing  but  to  excite  the 
child  to  an  active  observation  of  the  things  which  surround  it.  It  is  nothing  but 
a  regular  exercise  of  the  senses,  of  the  warm  feelings  of  the  heart,  of  the  powers 
of  speech,  and  of  the  natural  activity  of  the  body.  All  that  is  necessary  is  to 
second  the  feelings  of  mothers,  and  their  already  prepared,  and,  as  I  may  say,  in- 
stinctively simple  and  upright  understandings,  and  to  place  in  their  power  the 
necessary  means,  so  prepared  as  they  may  best  use  them. 

Good  mothers !  let  it  not  be  unjustly  said,  any  longer,  that  you  have  not  under- 
standing and  strength  for  what,  in  your  circumstances,  is  your  highest  and  holiest 
duty.  If  you  once  go  so  far  as  to  weep  in  the  stillness  of  your  chambers,  because 
the  good  Gertrude  did  more  for  her  children  than  you  have  hitherto  done  for 
yours,  I  am  sure  you  will  then  try  whether  it  be  not  possible  to  do  what  she  did ; 
and  it  is  when  you  are  arrived  at  this  point,  that  I  wish  to  offer  you  my  element- 
ary books. 

My  heart  here  bids  me  be  silent ;  but  one  word  more !  Whoever  wishes  to  do 
his  duty  to  God,  to  posterity,  to  public  right,  and  public  order,  and  to  the  security 
of  family  happiness,  must,  in  one  way  or  other,  accord  with  the  spirit  of  my 
book,  and  seek  the  same  object.  This  is  my  comfort.  "When  these  truths  are 
ripened,  as  ripen  they  must,  they  will  bear  fruit ;  when  they  are  become  fitted  for 
the  poor  and  desolate,  they  will  be  enjoyed  by  them.  Many  good  men  and 
women,  who  have  hitherto  been  unable,  notwithstanding  the  best  inclinations,  to 
give  a  good  piece  of  advice  to  a  neighbor,  will  become  the  fathers  and  mothers  of 
the  poor  and  desolate.  It  is  to  this  strength  and  greatness  that  I  seek  to  elevate 
the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  nobles,  and  of  the  people,  of  my  native  country. 
After  my  death,  may  men  of  matured  powers  proceed  in  this  great  object  of  my 
life ;  and,  before  I  close  my  eyes,  may  I  enjoy  the  happiness  of  seeing  both  my 
object  and  the  means  which  I  employ  to  attain  it,  no  longer  misunderstood. 

Alas !  this  misunderstanding  prevents  the  happiness  of  thousands,  who,  but 
for  it,  would  every  where  find  wise  and  powerful  assistance. 

PESTALOZZI. 

BURGDOKF,  November,  1803. 


CONTENTS. 


PACK. 

CHAPTER  I. — A  kind-hearted  man,  who 
yet  makes  his  wife  and  children  very  un- 
happy,   9 

CHAPTER  11. — A  woman  who  forms  a  reso- 
lution, acts  up  to  it,  and  finds  a  lord  of  the 
manor,  who  has  the  heart  of  a  father  to- 
ward his  dependents, 11 

CHAPTER  in. — A  brute  appears, 13 

CHAPTER  iv. — He  is  with  his  own  set,  and  it 

is  there  that  rogues  show  themselves 15 

CHAPTER  v. — He  finds  his  master, 16 

CHAPTER  vi. — Conversation  amongst  coun- 
try people, 19 

CHAPTER  vn. — The  bailiff  begins  some  bai- 
liff's business, 23 

CHAPTER  vm. — When  the  wheels  are  greased 

the  wagon  goes, 24 

CHAPTER  ix.— On  the  rights  of  the  country,  25 
CHAPTER  x. — The  barber's   dog  drinks  up 
water  at  an  unlucky  moment,  and  plays 

the  bailiff  a  sad  trick 26 

CHAPTER  xi. — Well-laid  plots  of  a  rogue, ..  28 

CHAPTER  xn. — Domestic  happiness 30 

CHAPTER  xin. — A  proof  that  Gertrude  was 

dear  to  her  husband, 32 

CHAPTER  xiv. — Mean  selfishness, 36 

CHAPTER  xv. — The  wise  goose  lays  an  egg ; 
or,  a  blunder  which  costs  a  glass  of  wine,.  37 

CHAPTER  xvi.— The  death-bed 38 

CHAPTER  xvn. — The  sick  woman's  behavior  40 
CHAPTER  xvni. — A  poor  boy  asks  pardon 
for  having  stolen   potatoes,  and  the  sick 

women  dies, 43 

CHAPTER  xix. — Good  spirits  comfort,  cheer, 
and  support  a  man,  but  anxiety  is  a  con- 
tinual torment, 45  j 

CHAPTER  xx.— Foolish   gossiping  leads   to 

idleness, 40 

CHAPTER  xxi. — Ingratitude  and  envy, 46 

CHAPTER  xxn. — Remorse    for   perjury  can 

not  be  allayed  by  crafty  arts, 47 

CHAPTER  xxm. — A  hypocrite,  and  a  suffer- 
ing woman, 49 

CHAPTER  xxiv.— An  honest,  joyful,  thank- 
ful heart, 51 

CHAPTER  xxv. — How  rogues  talk  to  each 
other 51 


PAGE. 

CHAPTER  xxvi. — Pride,  in  poverty  and  dis- 
tress, leads  to  the  most  unnatural  and  horri- 
ble deeds, 52 

CHAPTER  xxvu. — Activity  and  industry, 
without  a  kind  and  grateful  heart, 54 

CHAPTER  xxvni. — A  Saturday  evening  in 
the  house  of  a  bailiff,  who  is  a  land- 
lord,   55 

CHAPTER  xxix. — Continuation  of  the  con- 
versation of  rogues  with  each  other, 57 

CHAPTER  xxx. — Continuation  of  the  con- 
versation of  rogues  with  each  other,  in  a 
different  style, GO 

CHAPTER  xxxi. — The  evening  before  a  Sab- 
bath in  the  house  of  a  good  mother, 62 

CHAPTER  xxxn. — The  happiness  of  the  hour 
of  prayer, 63 

CHAPTER  xxxiu. — The  seriousness  of  the 
hour  of  prayer, 64 

CHAPTER  xxxiv. — A  mother's  instruction,.  6.5 

CHAPTER  xxxv. — A  Saturday  evening  pray- 
er,... ..  66 


CHAPTER  xxxvi. — Pure  devotion  and  lift- 
ing up  of  the  soul  to  God, 67 

CHAPTER  xxxvu. — Kindness  toward  a  poor 
man, 69 

CHAPTER  xxxvm. — The  pure  and  peaceful 
greatness  of  a  benevolent  heart, 73 

CHAPTER  xxxix. — A  sermon, 74 

CHAPTER  XL. — A  proof  that  the  sermon  was 
good ;  Item,  on  knowledge  and  error,  and 
what  is  called  oppressing  the  poor, 77 

CHAPTER  xn. — A  church-warden  informs 
the  pastor  of  improper  conduct, 81 

CHAPTER  XLII. — An  addition  to  the  morn- 
ing's discourse, 82 

CHAPTER  XLIII. — The  countrymen  in  the 
tavern  are  disturbed, 82 

CHAPTER  XLIV. — Description  of  a  wicked 
man's  feelings  during  the  sacrament, 83 

CHAPTER  XLV.— The  bailiff's  wife  tells  her 
husband  some  weighty  truths,  but  many 
years  too  In  te, 84 

CHAPTER  XLVI.— Soliloquy  of  a  man  whose 
thoughts  unhappily  lend  him  too  far 85 

CHAPTER  XLVII. — Domestic  happiness  on  the 
Sabbath  day, 86 


10 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 


PAGE. 

CHAPTER  XLVIII. — Some  observations  upon 
sin, 88 

CHAPTER  XLIX. — The  character  and  educa- 
tion of  children, 88 

CHAPTER  L. — Conceit  and  bad  habits  inter- 
fere with  our  happiness,  even  when  we  are 
doing  a  kind  action, 91 

CHAPTER  LI. — No  man  can  tell  what  happy 
consequences  may  result  from  even  the 
most  trifling  good  action, 92 

CHAPTER  LII. — Early  in  the  morning  is  too 
late  for  what  ought  to  be  done  the  evening 
before, 93 

CHAPTER  LIII. — The  more  culpable  a  man 
is  himself,  the  more  violently  does  he  abuse 
another  who  hns  done  wrong, 93 

CHAPTER  LIV. — Useless  labor  for  poor  peo- 
ple,   94 

CHAPTER  LV. — A  hypocrite  makes  friends 
with  a  rogue, 94 

CHAPTER  LVI.— It  is  decided  that  the  bailiff 
must  no  longer  be  a  landlord, 96 

CHAPTER  LVH.— His  conduct  upon  the  oc- 
casion,   96 

CHAPTER  LVIII. — His  companion, 97 

CHAPTER  LIX. — Explanation  of  a  difficulty,     97 

CHAPTER  LX. — A  digression, 98 

CHAPTER  LXI. — An  old  man  lays  open  his 
heart, 98 

CHAPTER  LXII. — The  horrors  of  an  uneasy 
conscience, 1UO 

CHAPTER  LXIII. — Kindness  and  sympathy 
save  a  wretched  man  from  becoming  utter- 
ly distracted, 100 

CHAPTER  LXIV. — A  pastor's  treatment  of  a 
case  of  conscience 100 

CHAPTER  LXV. — There  is  often  a  delicacy 
in  the  poorest  people,  even  when  they  are 
receiving  favors  for  which  they  have 
asked, 102 

CHAPTER  LXVI. — A  forester  who  does  not 
believe  in  ghosts 103 

CHAPTER  LXVII. — A  man  who  desires  to 
remove  a  landmark,  and  would  willingly 
disbelieve  in  the  existence  of  spirits,  but 
dares  not, 104 

CHAPTER  LXVUI. — The  setting  sun,  and  a 
poorTlost  wretch, 104 

CHAPTER  LXIX. — How  a  man  should  con- 
duct himself,  who  would  prosper  in  the 
management  of  others, 105 

CHAPTER  LXX. — A  man  who  is  a  rogue  and 
thief  behaves  honorably,  and  the  mason's 
wife  shows  her  good  sense, 105 

CHAPTER  LXXI.— The  catastrophe  draws 
near, 107 


PAGE. 

CHAPTER  LXXII. — His  last  hope  forsakes 
the  bailiff, 108 

CHAPTER  LXXIH. — He  sets  about  removing 
the  landmark, 108 

CHAPTER  LXXIV. — Night  greatly  deceives 
drunkards  and  rogues,  especially  when 
they  are  in  trouble...... 109 

CHAPTER  LXXV. — The  village  is  in  an  up- 
roar,    109 

CHAPTER  LXXVI. — The  pastor  comes  to  the 
tavern, 110 

CHAPTER  LXXVII.— Care  of  souls, Ill 

CHAPTER  LXXVIII. — Two  letters  from  the 

pastor  to  Arner, 114 

First  letter, 114 

Second  letter, 114 

CHAPTER  LXXIX. — The  poulterer's  informa- 
tion,   115 

CHAPTER  LXXX.— The  squire's  answer  to 
the  pastor, 116 

CHAPTER  LXXXI. — A  good  cow-man, 117 

CHAPTER  LXXXII. — A  coachman  who  loves 
his  master's  son, 117 

CHAPTER  LXXXIII. — The  squire  with  his 
workmen, 118 

CHAPTER  LXXXIV  — A  squire  and  a  pastor, 
who  have  equally  kind  hearts 118 

CHAPTER  LXXXV. — The  squire's  feelings 
toward  his  guilty  bailiff, 119 

CHAPTER  LXXXVI. — The  pastor  again  shows 
his  kindness  of  heart 119 

CHAPTER  LXXXVII. — On  a  cheerful  disposi- 
tion, and  on  ghosts, 120 

CHAPTER  LXXXVIII. — On  ghosts,  in  a  differ- 
ent tone, 123 

CHAPTER  LXXXIX. — A  judgment 124 

CHAPTER  xc. — The  proposal  of  Hurtknopf, 
the  church-warden, 125 

CHAPTER  xci. — The  squire's  reply, 126 

CHAPTER  xcn. — Speech  of  the  poulterer  to 
the  meeting, 127 

CHAPTER  xcm. — The  poor  are  gainers  by 
the  comedy, 128 

CHAPTER  xciv. — The  squire  thanks  the  pas- 
tor,   129 

CHAPTER  xcv. — The  squire  asks  forgiveness 
from  u  poor  man,  whom  his  grandfather 
had  injured, 130 

CHAPTER  xcvi. — Generosity  of  a  poor  man 
toward  his  enemy, 131 

CHAPTER  xcvu. — His  gratitude  to  the 
squire, 132 

CHAPTER  xcvin. — A  scene  to  touch  the 
heart 132 

CHAPTER  xcix. — A  pleasing  prospect, 133 

CHAPTER  c. — The  poulterer's  reward, 133 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 


CHAPTER  i. — A  KIND-HEARTED  MAN,  WHO  YET  MAKES  HIS  WIFE  AND  CHILDREN 

VERY  UNHAPPY. 

THERE  lived  in  Bonnal,  a  mason.  He  was  called  Leonard,  and  his  wife,  Ger- 
trude. He  had  seven  children  and  some  property,  but  he  had  this  fault ;  that 
he  often  let  himself  be  tempted  to  the  tavern.  When  he  was  once  seated  there, 
he  behaved  like  a  madman ; — and  there  are  in  our  village,  cunning,  good-for- 
nothing  rogues,  whose  sole  employment  and  business  it  is,  to  take  in  honest  and 
simple  people,  and  seize  every  opportunity  of  getting  hold  of  their  money. 
These  were  acquainted  with  poor  Leonard,  and  often  led  him  on  from  drinking 
to  gaming,  and  thus  cheated  him  of  the  produce  of  his  labor.  Whenever  this 
had  happened  over-night,  Leonard  repented  in  the  morning,  and  it  went  to  his 
heart  when  he  saw  Gertrude  and  his  children  wanting  bread,  so  that  he  trembled, 
wept,  and  cast  down  his  eyes  to  conceal  his  tears. 

Gertrude  was  the  best  wife  in  the  village ;  but  she  and  her  blooming  children 
were  in  danger  of  being  robbed  of  their  father,  and  driven  from  their  home,  and 
of  sinking  into  the  greatest  misery,  because  Leonard  could  not  let  wine  alone. 

Gertrude  saw  the  approaching  danger,  and  felt  it  most  keenly.  When  she 
fetched  grass  from  the  meadow,  when  she  took  hay  from  the  loft,  when  she  set 
away  the  milk  in  her  clean  pans,  whatever  she  was  doing,  she  was  tormented 
by  the  thought  that  her  meadow,  her  haystack,  and  her  h'ttle  hut,  might  soon  be 
taken  away  from  her ;  and  when  her  children  were  standing  around  her,  or  sit- 
ting in  her  lap,  her  anguish  was  still  greater,  and  the  tears  streamed  down  her 
cheeks. 

Hitherto,  however,  she  had  been  able  to  conceal  this  silent  weeping  from  her 
children ;  but  on  Wednesday,  before  last  Easter,  when  she  had  waited  long  and 
her  husband  did  not  come  home,  her  grief  overcame  her,  and  the  children  ob- 
served her  tears.  "Oh  mother,"  exclaimed  they  all  with  one  voice,  "you  are 
weeping,"  and  pressed  themselves  closer  to  her.  Sorrow  and  anxiety  were  on 
every  countenance — anxious  sobs,  heavy,  downcast  looks,  and  silent  tears,  sur- 
rounded the  mother,  and  even  the  baby  in  her  arms,  betrayed  a  feeling  of  pain 
hitherto  unknown — his  first  expression  of  care  and  sorrow,  his  staring  eyes 
which,  for  the  first  time,  were  fixed  upon  her  without  a  smile — all  this  quite 
broke  her  heart.  Her  anguish  burst  out  in  a  loud  cry,  and  all  the  children  and 
the  baby  wept  with  their  mother,  and  there  was  a  dreadful  sound  of  lamentation 
just  as  Leonard  opened  the  door. 

Gertrude  lay  with  her  face  on  the  bed;  heard  n6t  the  opening  of  the  door, 
and  saw  not  the  entrance  of  the  father ;  neither  did  the  children  perceive  him. 
They  saw  only  their  weeping  mother,  and  hung  on  her  arm  and  round  her  neck, 
and  by  her  clothes.  Thus  did  Leonard  find  them. 

God  in  heaven  sees  the  tears  of  the  wretched,  and  puts  a  limit  to  their  grief. 
Gertrude  found  in  her  tears  the  mercy  of  God.  The  mercy  of  God  brought 


12  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

Leonard  to  witness  this  scene,  which  pierced  through  his  soul,  so  that  his  limbs 
trembled.  The  paleness  of  death  was  upon  his  countenance,  and  he  could 
scarcely  articulate,  with  a  hasty  and  broken  voice :  "  Lord  Jesus  1  what  is  this  ?" 
Then  the  mother  saw  him  for  the  first  time,  the  children  looked  up,  and  their 
loud  exclamations  of  grief  were  hushed.  "  0  mother !  here  is  our  father,"  said 
the  children  all  at  once,  and  even  the  baby  sobbed  no  longer. 

As  a  torrent,  or  a  raging  flame,  did  their  wild  anguish  subside  into  quiet, 
thoughtful  anxiety.  Gertrude  loved  Leonard,  and  in  her  deepest  distress  his 
presence  was  always  a  comfort.  Leonard's  horror  also  was  now  less  overwhelm- 
ing than  at  first. 

"  Tell  me,  Gertrude,"  said  he,  "what  is  this  dreadful  trouble  in  which  I  find 
thee?" 

"0  my  dear,"  answered  Gertrude,  "heavy  cares  press  upon  my  heart,  and 
when  thou  art  away  sorrow  preys  more  keenly  upon  me." 

"  Gertrude,"  said  Leonard,  "I  know  why  thou  weepest,  wretch  that  I  am!" 

Then  Gertrude  sent  away  the  children,  and  Leonard  hid  his  face  on  her  neck, 
and  could  not  speak. 

Gertrude  too  was  silent  for  a  few  moments,  and  leaned  sorrowfully  against  her 
husband,  who  wept  and  sobbed  on  her  neck. 

At  last  she  collected  all  her  strength,  and  took  courage  to  urge  him  not  to 
bring  any  further  trouble  and  misery  upon  his  children. 

Gertrude  was  pious,  and  trusted  in  God ;  and  before  she  spoke,  she  prayed 
silently  for  her  husband  and  for  her  children ;  and  her  heart  was  evidently  com- 
forted as  she  said,  "  Leonard !  trust  in  the  mercy  of  God,  and  take  courage  to 
do  nothing  but  what  is  right." 

"0  Gertrude,  Gertrude!"  exclaimed  Leonard,  and  wept,  and  his  tears  fell  in 
torrents. 

"  0  my  love !  take  courage  and  trust  in  thy  Father  in  heaven,  and  all  will  be 
better  with  thee.  It  goes  to  my  heart  to  make  thee  weep.  My  love,  I  would 
gladly  keep  every  trouble  from  thee.  Thou  knowest  that,  by  thy  side,  I  could 
be  content  with  bread  and  water,  and  the  still  midnight  is  often  to  me  an  hour 
of  cheerful  labor,  for  thee  and  my  children.  But,  if  I  concealed  my  anxiety  from 
thee,  lest  I  be  separated  from  thee  and  these  dear  little  ones,  I  should  be  no 
mother  to  my  children,  nor  true  to  thee.  Our  children  are  yet  full  of  gratitude 
and  love  toward  us, — but,  my  Leonard,  if  we  do  not  continue  to  act  as  parents, 
their  love  and  tenderness,  to  which  I  trust  so  much,  must  needs  decrease,  and 
think  too  what  thou  wilt  feel,  when  thy  Nicholas  has  no  longer  a  home  of  his 
own,  and  must  go  out  to  service.  He  who  now  talks  with  so  much  delight  of 
freedom  and  his  own  little  flock.  Leonard !  if  he,  and  all  these  dear  children, 
should  become  poor  through  our  fault,  should  cease  to  thank  us  in  their  hearts, 
and  begin  to  weep  for  us  their  parents — Leonard!  couldst  thou  bear  to  see  thy 
Nicholas,  thy  Jonas,  thy  Liseli,  and  thy  little  Anneli,  driven  out  of  doors  to  seek 
their  bread  at  another's  table  ?  Oh !  it  would  kill  me  to  see  it."  So  spoke  Ger- 
trude, and  the  tears  fell  down  her  cheeks. 

And  Leonard  was  not  less  affected.  "  "What  shall  I  do,  miserable  creature 
that  I  am  ?  What  can  I  do  ?  I  am  yet  more  wretched  than  thou  knowest  of — 
0  Gertrude !  Gertrude!"  Then  he  was  again  silent,  wrung  his  hands  and  wept 
in  extreme  misery. 

"Oh,  my  dear  husband,  do  not  mistrust  God's  mercy!  "Whatever  it  be,  speak! 
that  we  may  consult  together,  and  comfort  each  other." 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  J3 

CHAPTER  n. — A  WOMAN  WHO  FORMS  A  RESOLUTION,  ACTS  UP  TO  IT,  AND  FINDS 

A  LORD   OF   THE   MANOR,  WHO   HAS   THE   HEART  OF   A   FATHER   TOWARD 
HIS    DEPENDENTS. 

"  OH  Gertrude,  Gertrude !  it  breaks  my  heart  to  tell  thee  my  distress  and  add 
to  thy  anxieties ;  and  yet  I  must  do  it.  I  owe  Hummel,  the  bailiff,  thirty  florins : 
and  he  is  a  hound  to  those  who  are  in  debt  to  him,  and  not  a  man.  I  wish  I 
had  never  seen  his  face !  If  I  do  not  go  to  his  house,  he  threatens  me  with  law ; 
and  if  I  do  go,  the  wages  of  my  labor  are  in  his  claws.  This,  Gertrude,  this  is 
the  source  of  our  misfortunes." 

"  My  dear  husband,"  replied  Gertrude,  "  canst  thou  not  go  to  Arner,  the  father 
of  the  country  ?  Thou  knowest  how  all  the  widows  and  orphans  praise  him.  I 
think  he  would  give  thee  counsel  and  protection  against  this  man." 

"  0  Gertrude,"  said  Leonard,  "  I  can  not,  I  dare  not.  "What  could  I  say  against 
the  bailiff?  He  would  bring  up  a,  thousand  different  things  against  me !  He  is 
bold  and  cunning,  and  has  a  hundred  ways  and  means  of  crying  down  a  poor 
man  before  a  magistrate,  so  that  he  may  not  be  heard." 

Gertrude.  Dear  husband,  I  never  yet  spoke  to  a  magistrate,  but  if  necessity 
and  want  carried  me  to  him,  I  am  sure  I  could  speak  the  truth  to  any  man.  0 
do  not  be  afraid ;  think  of  me,  and  of  thy  children,  and  go. 

"Gertrude,"  said  Leonard,  "I  can  not,  I  dare  not.  I  am  not  free  from  fault. 
The  bailiff  will  coolly  take  the  whole  village  to  witness  that  I  am  a  drunkard. 
0  Gertrude,  I  am  not  blameless.  "What  can  I  say?  Nobody  will  stand  up 
against  him  and  say  that  he  enticed  me  to  it  all.  0  Gertrude,  if  I  could,  if  I 
durst,  how  gladly  would  I  go ;  but  if  ventured,  and  did  not  succeed,  think  how 
he  would  revenge  himself." 

Gertrude.  But  even  if  thou  art  silent  he  will  nevertheless  bring  thee  to  ruin, 
without  a  chance  of  escape.  Leonard,  think  of  thy  children,  and  go.  This 
anxiety  of  heart  must  have  an  end.  Go, — or  I  will  go  myself. 

Leonard.  Gertrude,  I  dare  not.  If  thou  darest,  for  God's  sake,  go  directly  to 
Arner,  and  tell  him  all. 

"I  will  go,"  said  Gertrude;  and  she  did  not  sleep  one  hour  that  night;  but 
she  prayed  during  that  sleepless  night,  and  was  more  and  more  resolved  to  go  to 
Arner,  the  lord  of  the  manor. 

Early  in  the  morning  she  took  her  baby,  which  bloomed  like  a  rose,  and  went 
six  miles,  to  the  hall. 

Arner  was  sitting  under  his  lime-trees,  before  the  door  of  his  house,  as  Ger- 
trude approached ;  he  saw  her,  he  saw  the  baby  in  her  arms,  and  upon  her 
countenance  sorrow  and  suffering,  and  the  traces  of  tears.     "  What  do  you  want 
my  good  woman?    Who  are  you?"  said  he,  so  kindly  that  she  took  courage  to' 
speak. 

"I  am  Gertrude,"  said  she,  "the  wife  of  Leonard,  the  mason  of  Bonnal." 

"You  are  an  excellent  woman,"  said  Arner.  "  I  have  observed  your  children 
more  than  all  the  rest  in  the  village ;  they  are  more  modest  and  better  behaved 
than  any  of  the  others ;  and  they  appear  better  fed.  And  yet  I  hear  you  are 
very  poor.  Tell  me  what  you  wish  for."  • 

"0  gracious  sir,  my  husband  has,  for  some  time  past,  owed  Urias  Hummel, 
the  bailiff,  thirty  florins ;  and  he  is  a  hard  man.  He  entices  him  to  gaming,  and 
all  kinds  of  waste ;  and  because  he  is  afraid  of  him,  he  dare  not  keep  away  from 
his  tavern,  though  it  costs  him,  almost  every  day,  his  wages  and  his  children's 


14  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

bread.  Honored  sir !  he  has  seven  young  children,  and  without  help  and  coun- 
sel against  the  bailiff  it  is  impossible  that  we  should  escape  beggary.  I  know 
that  you  have  compassion  upon  the  widow  and  the  orphan,  and  therefore  I  have 
made  bold  to  come  to  you,  and  tell  you  our  misfortunes.  I  have  brought  with 
me  all  my  children's  savings,  to  leave  them  with  you,  if  I  might  venture  to  beg 
you  to  make  some  agreement  for  us,  so  that  the  bailiff,  till  he  is  paid,  may  not 
oppress  and  injure  us  any  more." 

Arner  had  long  had  suspicions  of  the  bailiff.  He  perceived,  therefore,  imme- 
diately, the  truth  of  this  complaint,  and  the  wisdom  of  what  she  asked.  He  took 
a  cup  of  tea  which  stood  before  him,  and  said — "  You  are  tired,  Gertrude ;  drink 
this  tea,  and  give  your  pretty  child  some  of  this  milk." 

Gertrude  stood  blushing ;  and  this  paternal  kindness  went  to  her  heart,  so  that 
she  could  not  restrain  her  tears.  And  Arner  encouraged  her  to  tell  him  what 
the  bailiff  and  his  companions  had  done,  and  the  wants  and  cares  of  many  years. 
He  listened  attentively,  and  than  asked  her,  "How  have  you  been  able,  Ger- 
trude, through  all  this  distress  to  keep  your  children's  money  ?" 

Then  Gertrude  answered: — "It  was  difficult  indeed,  gracious  sir,  to  do  so; 
but  I  always  looked  upon  the  money  as  not  my  own,  as  if  some  dying  man  had 
given  it  me  on  his  death-bed  to  keep  for  his  children.  I  considered  it  almost  in 
this  light ;  and  if  ever,  in  the  time  of  our  greatest  need,  I  was  obliged  to  buy 
the  children  bread  with  it,  I  never  rested  till  I  had  made  it  up  again  for  them  by 
night  labor." 

"Was  that  always  possible,  Gertrude?"  said  Arner. 

"  0  gracious  sir,  if  we  have  once  set  our  hearts  upon  any  thing,  we  can  do 

more  than  we  could  imagine  possible,  and  God  always  helps  us  in  our  greatest 

;  need,  if  we  are  really  doing  our  best  to  get  what  is  absolutely  necessary.     0 

gracious  sir,  he  helps  us  more  than  you  in  your  magnificence  can  know  or 

imagine." 

Arner  was  deeply  affected  by  the  innocence  and  goodness  of  this  poor  woman ; 
he  made  still  further  inquiries;  and  said,  "Gertrude,  where  is  this  money?" 

Then  Gertrude  laid  down  seven  neat  parcels  upon  Arner's  table ;  and  to  every 
parcel  was  fastened  a  ticket,  saying  whose  it  was,  and  when  Gertrude  had  taken 
any  thing  away  from  it,  and  how  she  had  replaced  it. 

Arner  read  the  tickets  over  attentively.  Gertrude  saw  it,  and  blushed:  "I 
ought  to  have  taken  away  these  tickets,  gracious  sir." 

Arner  smiled,  and  read  on;  but  Gertrude  stood  there  abashed,  and  her 
heart  throbbed  on  account  of  these  tickets ;  for  she  was  modest,  and  troubled  at 
the  least  appearance  of  vanity. 

Arner  saw  her  uneasiness  because  she  had  not  taken  off  the  tickets,  and  felt 
the  simple  dignity  of  innocence,  as  she  stood  ashamed  that  her  goodness  and 
prudence  were  noticed ;  and  he  resolved  to  befriend  her  more  than  she  asked  or 
hoped  for;  for  he  felt  her  worth,  and  that  no  woman  was  like  her  among  a  thou- 
sand. He  added  something  to  each  of  the  parcels,  and  said  "Take  back  your 
children's  money,  Gertrude,  and  I  will  lay  down  thirty  florins  for  the  bailiff,  till 
he  is  paid.  Go  home,  now,  Gertrude ;  to-morrow  I  shall  be  in  the  village,  and 
I  will  settle  matters  between  you  and  Hummel." 

Gertrude  could  not  speak  for  joy;  scarcely  could  she  stammer  out  a  broken, 
sobbing — "  Heaven  reward  you,  gracious  sir !"  and  then  she  went  with  her  baby, 
and  with  the  comfort  she  had  obtained,  to  her  husband.  As  she  went,  she 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  15 

prayed  and  thanked  God  all  the  way,  and  wept  tears  of  gratitude  and  hope,  till 
she  came  to  her  cottage. 

Leonard  saw  her  coming,  and  saw  the  joy  of  her  heart  hi  her  countenance. 

"  Art  thou  here  again  so  soon  ?"  said  he,  going  to  meet  her.  "  Thou  hast  been 
successful  v/ith  Arner." 

"  How  dost  thou  know  that  already  ?"  said  Gertrude. 

"  I  see  it  in  thy  face,  thou  excellent  creature,  thou  canst  not  conceal  it." 

"  That  can  I  not,"  said  Gertrude,  "  and  I  would  not,  if  I  could,  keep  the  good 
news  a  moment  from  thee,  Leonard."  Then  she  related  to  him  Anier's  kind- 
ness ;  how  he  had  believed  her  words,  and  how  he  had  promised  to  help  them. 
And  she  gave  the  children  Arner's  present,  and  kissed  them  all,  more  fondly 
and  cheerfully  than  she  had  done  for  a  long  time  past ;  and  said  to  them :  "  Pray 
every  day  for  Arner,  my  children,  as  you  pray  for  your  father  and  me.  Arner 
cares  for  the  welfare  of  all  the  country ;  he  cares  for  your  welfare ;  and  if  you 
are  good  and  well-behaved,  and  industrious,  you  will  be  dear  to  him,  as  you  are 
dear  to  me  and  to  your  father." 

From  that  time  forward  the  mason's  children,  every  morning  and  evening, 
when  they  prayed  for  their  father  and  mother,  prayed  also  for  Arner,  the  father 
of  the  country. 

Gertrude  and  Leonard  made  fresh  resolutions  to  look  after  the  management 
of  the  house,  and  to  bring  up  their  children  in  every  good  way ;  and  this  day 
was  a  festival  to  them.  Leonard's  courage  was  renewed,  and  in  the  evening 
Gertrude  prepared  for  him  a  supper  that  he  was  fond  of;  and  they  rejoiced  to- 
gether over  the  coming  morning,  the  assistance  of  Arner,  and  the  mercy  of  their 
God. 

Arner,  too,  longed  for  the  next  morning,  that  he  might  do  a  deed,  such  as  he 
did  by  thousands,  to  make  his  existence  useful. 

CHAPTER  in. — A  BRUTE  APPEARS. 

AND  when  his  bailiff  came  to  him,  that  evening,  to  receive  his  orders,  he  said 
to  him,  "  I  am  coming  myself  to  Bonnal,  to-morrow.  I  am  determined  to  have 
the  building  of  the  church  begun  at  last."  The  bailiff  replied:  "  Gracious  sir, 
is  your  grace's  master-builder  at  liberty  now?  "No,"  answered  Arner,  "but 
there  is  a  mason  in  the  village,  of  the  name  of  Leonard,  whom  I  shall  be  glad 
to  employ  in  this  affair.  "Why  have  you  never  recommended  him  to  me  before 
as  a  workman  ?" 

The  bailiff  made  a  low  bow,  and  said  :  "I  durst  not  have  employed  the  poor 
mason  in  any  of  your  magnificence's  buildings." 

Arner.     "Is  he  a  trusty  man,  bailiff,  upon  whom  I  can  depend?" 
Bailiff.     "  Yes — your  grace  may  depend  upon  him ;  he  is  a  very  honest  fellow." 
"They  say  he  has  an  excellent  wife;  is  she  not  a  talker?"  said  Arner  em- 
phatically. 

"No,  indeed,"  replied  the  bailiff,   "  she  is  a  hard-working,  quiet  woman." 
"  Very  well,"  said  Arner,   "  be  at  the  church-yard  to-morrow  morning,  at  nine 
o'clock.     I  will  meet  you  there  myself." 

The  bailiff  went  away,  well  pleased  with  this  conversation;  for  he  thought 
within  himself,  this  is  a  fresh  cow  for  my  stall;  and  he  already  turned  over  in 
his  mind  the  tricks  by  which  he  should  get  from  the  mason,  the  money  he  might 
gain  by  this  building  of  the  church.  He  went  straight  home,  and  then  to  the 
mason's  cottage. 


IQ  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

It  was  already  dark,  as  he  knocked  impatiently  at  the  door. 

Leonard  and  Gertrude  were  sitting  by  the  table.  The  remains  of  the  supper 
were  still  before  them.  Leonard  knew  the  voice  of  the  envious  bailiff,  started, 
and  pushed  the  food  into  a  corner. 

Gertrude  encouraged  him  not  to  be  afraid,  and  to  trust  in  Arner ;  but  he 
turned  pale  as  he  opened  the  door  for  the  bailiff. 

The  latter  smelt  out  the  concealed  supper  as  quick  as  a  hungry  hound,  but  ho 
behaved  civilly,  and  said,  though  with  a  smile ;  "  You  are  well  off',  good  people; 
it  is  easy  to  do  without  the  tavern  at  this  rate.  Is  it  not,  Leonard?" 

The  poor  man  cast  down  his  eyes  and  was  silent ;  but  Gertrude  was  bolder, 
and  said:  "What  are  the  bailiff's  commands?  It  is  seldom  that  he  comes  fur- 
ther than  to  the  window  of  such  a  poor  house  as  this." 

Hummel  concealed  his  anger,  laughed,  and  said:  "It  is  very  true  that  I 
should  not  have  expected  to  find  such  good  cooking  here ;  or  perhaps  I  might 
have  invited  myself." 

This  vexed  Gertrude.  "Bailiff,"  said  she,  "you  smell  our  supper,  and  grudge 
it  us.  When  a  poor  man  is  enjoying  a  supper  he  likes,  and  which  perhaps  he 
does  not  get  three  times  in  a  year,  you  should  be  ashamed  to  come  in  and  spoil 
it." 

"I  had  no  such  wicked  intention,"  said  the  bailiff,  still  laughing.  But  soon 
afterward,  he  added  more  seriously,  "You  are  too  insolent,  Gertrude;  it  does 
not  become  poor  people.  You  should  remember  that  we  may  have  something  to 
do  with  each  other  yet.  But  I  will  not  begin  upon  this  at  present.  I  am  always 
kindly  disposed  toward  your  husband ;  and  whenever  I  can,  I  serve  him.  Of 
this  I  can  give  proof." 

Gertrude.  "  Bailiff,  my  husband  is  enticed  away,  every  day,  to  drink  and  game 
in  your  tavern,  and  then  must  I  and  my  children,  at  home,  suffer  every  possible 
misery.  This  is  the  service  we  have  to  thank  you  for." 

Hummel.  "  You  do  me  wrong,  Gertrude.  It  is  true  that  your  husband  is 
somewhat  inclined  to  drinking.  I  have  often  told  him  so.  But  in  my  tavern, 
I  can  not  refuse  any  man  what  he  asks  for,  to  eat  and  drink.  Every  body  does 
the  same." 

Ger.  "Yes;  but  every  body  does  not  threaten  a  poor  unfortunate  man  with 
law,  if  he  does  not  double  his  reckoning  every  year." 

Here  the  bailiff  could  restrain  himself  no  longer;  he  turned  in  a  rage  to 
Leonard :  "  Are  you  such  a  pitiful  fellow,  Leonard,  as  to  tell  these  tales  of  me  ? 
Must  I  have  it  thrown  into  my  very  beard,  what  you  ragamuffins  are  going  to 
bring  upon  the  credit  and  good  name  of  an  old  man  like  me  ?  Did  I  not  reckon 
with  you  a  short  time  ago,  before  the  overseer  ?  It  is  well  that  all  the  tickets 
are  in  my  hands.  Will  you  deny  my  claims,  Leonard?" 

"  That  is  not  the  question,"  said  Leonard.  "  Gertrude  only  wants  me  to  make 
no  fresh  debts." 

The  bailiff  considered  a  little,  lowered  his  tone,  and  said:  "There  is  nothing 
so  much  amiss  in  that.  But  you  are  the  master — she  does  not  wish  to  tie  you 
up  in  leading-strings  ?" 

Ger.  "Far  from  it,  bailiff.  I  only  wish  to  get  him  out  of  the  leading-strings 
in  which  he  is  now  fast — and  that  is  your  book,  bailiff,  and  those  beautiful 
tickets." 

Hum.  "  He  has  only  to  pay  me,  and  then  he  will  be  out  of  the  leading-strings, 
as  you  call  them,  in  a  twinkl.ng." 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  j^ 

Ger.     "  He  will  well  be  able  to  do  that,  if  he  makes  no  fresh  debts." 

Hum.  "You  are  proud,  Gertrude — we  shall  see.  Confess  the  truth,  Ger- 
trude !  you  would  rather  sit  junketing  with  him  alone  at  home,  than  let  him 
enjoy  a  glass  of  wine  with  me." 

Ger.     "You  are  a  mean  fellow,  bailiff;  but  your  speeches  do  me  no  harm." 

Hummel  could  not  continue  this  conversation  any  longer.  He  felt  that  some- 
thing must  have  happened  to  make  this  woman  so  bold.  Therefore  he  durst  not 
indulge  his  anger,  and  took  his  leave. 

"  Have  you  any  further  commands  ?  "  said  Gertrude. 

"None  if  this  is  to  be  the  way;"  answered  Hummel. 

"  What  way  ?"    replied  Gertrude,  smiling,  and  looking  steadily  in  his  face. 

This  put  the  bailiff  still  more  out  of  countenance,  so  that  he  knew  not  how 
to  behave. 

He  went  out,  muttering  to  himself  down  the  steps ;  what  can  be  the  meaning 
of  all  this  ? 

Leonard  was  not  easy  about  the  business,  and  the  bailiff  was  still  less  so. 

CHAPTER  iv. — HE  is  WITH  HIS  OWN  SET,  AND  IT  is  THERE  THAT  ROGUES  SHOW 

THEMSELVES. 

IT  was  now  near  midnight,  and  as  soon  as  he  got  home,  he  sent  for  two  of 
Leonard's  neighbours,  to  come  to  him  directly. 

They  were  in  bed  when  he  sent,  but  got  up  again,  without  delay,  and  went 
to  him  through  the  dark  night. 

And  he  inquired  about  every  thing  which  Leonard  and  Gertrude  had  done 
for  some  days  past.  But  as  they  could  tell  him  nothing  which  threw  any  light 
upon  the  subject,  he  turned  his  rage  against  them. 

"  You  hounds,  if  one  wants  any  thing  from  you,  you  are  never  readj-  with  it. 
I  don't  know  why  I  should  always  be  your  fool.  "Whenever  you  trespass  in  the 
woods,  or  steal  fodder, — I  am  to  take  no  notice  of  it. — When  you  turn  cattle 
into  the  squire's  pastures  and  destroy  the  hedges — I  must  not  say  a  word" — 

"You,  Buller!  more  than  a  third  part  of  thy  reckoning  was  false,  and  I  was 
silent  about  it.  Dost  thou  think  that  bit  of  mouldy  hay  was  enough  to  content 
me  ?  but  the  year  is  not  yet  passed  over.  And  you,  Kruel !  Thy  half  meadow 
belongs  to  thy  brother's  children.  You  old  thief!  what  good  hast  thou  dono 
to  me,  that  I  should  not  give  thee  up  to  the  hangman,  whose  property  thou  art  ?  " 

These  speeches  frightened  the  neighbors. 

"What  can  we  do?  What  must  we  do,  Mr.  Bailiff?  By  night  or  by  day, 
we  are  always  ready  to  do  what  you  ask  us." 

"You  dogs!  You  can  do  nothing — you  know  nothing — I  am  half  mad  with 
rage.  I  must  know  what  the  mason's  people  have  been  about  this  week — what 
is  hidden  in  that  poke."  Thus  he  went  on. 

In  the  mean  time  Kruel  recollected  himself. 

"  Hold,  bailiff,  I  have  just  thought  of  something.  Gertrude  went  over  the 
fields  this  morning ;  and  this  evening,  her  Liseli  was  praising  the  squire  at  the  well. 
She  must  surely  have  been  to  the  hall.  The  evening  before,  there  was  a  great 
lamentation  in  the  cottage ;  nobody  knew  why.  To-day  they  are  all  cheerful 
again." 

The  bailiff  was  now  convinced  that  Gertrude  had  been  to  the  hall.  Anger 
and  alarm  raged  still  more  fiercely  in  his  soul. 

He  uttered  horrible  curses,  abused  Arner  violently  for  listening  to  every  beg- 

17 


1 3  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

garly  wretch  ;  and  swore  to  have  revenge  upon  Leonard  and  Gertrude.  "  But 
you  must  say  nothing  about  it,  neighbors.  I  will  treat  these  people  civilly,  till 
all  is  ripe.  Look  carefully  after  what  they  do,  and  bring  me  word — I  will  be 
your  man  when  you  want  help." 

Then  he  took  Buller  aside,  and  said.  "Dost  thou  know  any  thing  of  the  stolen 
flower-pots?  Thou  wert  seen,  yesterday,  going  over  the  borders  with  a  laden 
ass.  What  wert  thou  carrying  off? 

Buller  started.  "  I— I— had— "  "  Come,  come,"  said  the  bailifif  "  be  faithful 
to  me,  and  I  will  help  thee  at  a  pinch." 

Then  the  neighbors  went  away,  but  it  was  already  near  dawn. 

And  Hummel  threw  himself  on  his  bed  for  about  an  hour — started,  thought 
•  if  vengeance,  gnashed  his  teeth  in  uneasy  slumber,  and  kicked  with  his  feet — 
till  the  clear  day  called  him  from  his  bed. 

He  resolved  to  see  Leonard  once  more,  to  master  himself,  and  to  tell  him  that 
Arner  had  appointed  him  to  build  the  church.  He  summoned  all  his  powers 
of  deceiving,  and  went  to  him. 

Gertrude  and  Leonard  had  slept  more  peacefully  this  night  than  they  had 
done  for  a  long  time  past ;  and  at  the  dawn  of  morning  they  prayed  for  a  bless- 
ing upon  the  day.  They  hoped  also  for  prompt  help  from  Father  Arner.  This 
hope  spread  tranquillity  of  soul,  and  unwonted  delightful  serenity  around  them. 

Thus  did  Hummel  find  them.  He  saw  how  it  was,  and  Satan  entered  into 
his  heart,  so  that  he  was  more  than  ever  inflated  with  rage ;  but  he  commanded 
himself,  wished  them  civilly  good  morning,  and  said : 

"Leonard,  we  parted  in  anger  with  each  other  last  night;  but  this  must  not 
last.  I  have  some  good  news  for  thee.  I  am  come  from  our  gracious  master ; 
he  has  been  speaking  of  building  the  church,  and  inquired  about  thee.  I  said 
thou  wert  equal  to  the  work,  and  I  think  he  will  give  it  thee.  This  is  the  way 
neighbors  can  serve  one  another — we  must  not  be  so  easily  vexed." 

Leonard.  "He  has  agreed  with  his  master-builder  to  build  the  church.  You 
told  the  whole  village  so,  long  ago." 

Hummel.  "  I  thought  it  was  so ;  but  it  proves  a  mistake.  The  master-builder 
has  only  made  an  estimate  of  it,  and  thou  mayest  easily  believe  he  has  not  for- 
gotten his  own  profit.  If  thou  undertakest  it  according  to  this  reckoning,  thou 
inayst  gather  up  gold  like  leaves.  Leonard,  see  now  how  well  I  mean  by  thee." 

The  mason  was  overcome  by  the  hope  of  having  the  work,  and  thanked  him 
cordially.  But  Gertrude  saw  that  the  bailiff  was  white  with  smothered  rage, 
and  that  bitter  wrath  was  concealed  under  his  smiles ;  and  she  could  not  yet  re- 
joice. The  bailiff  retired,  and  as  he  went,  he  added,  "Within  an  hour  Arner 
will  be  here."  And  Leonard's  daughter  Lise,  who  was  standing  by  her  father, 
said  to  the  bailiff, 

"  We  have  known  that  ever  since  yesterday." 

Hummel  started  at  these  words,  but  pretended  not  to  hear  them. 

And  Gertrude,  who  saw  that  the  bailiff  was  lying  in  wait  for  the  money, 
which  might  be  gained  by  the  building  of  the  church,  was  very  uneasy  about  it. 

CHAPTER  r. — HE  FINDS  HIS  MASTER. 

IN  the  mean  time  Arner  came  to  the  churchyard,  and  many  people  collected 
together  from  the  village  to  see  the  good  squire. 

"  Are  you  so  idle,  or  is  this  a  holiday,  that  you  have  so  much  time  to  be  gossip- 
ing here  ?  said  the  bailiff  to  some  who  stood  too  near  him  ;  for  he  always  took  care 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  }g 

that  nobody  should  hear  the  orders  he  received.  But  Arner  observed  it  and 
said  aloud:  "  Bailiff,  I  like  my  children  to  remain  in  the  churchyard,  and  to 
hear,  themselves,  how  I  will  arrange  about  the  building.  Why  do  you  drive 
them  away  ?  " 

Hummel  bowed  down  to  the  ground,  and  called  aloud  to  the  neighbors  : 
"  Come  back  again  I  his  grace  will  allow  it." 

Arner.     "  Have  you  seen  the  estimate  for  the  building  of  the  church  ?" 

Bailiff.     "  Yes,  gracious  sir." 

Arner.  "Do  you  think  Leonard  can  make  the  building  good  and  durable,  at 
this  price  ?" 

"Yes,  gracious  sir,"  answered  the  bailiff;  and  he  added  in  a  lower  tone, 
"I  think,  as  he  lives  on  the  spot,  he  might  perhaps  undertake  it  for  something 
less." 

But  Arner  said  aloud,  "  As  much  as  I  would  have  given  to  my  master-builder, 
so  much  will  I  give  him.  Call  him  here,  and  take  care  that  he  has  as  much 
from  the  wood  and  from  the  magazine  as  the  master-builder  would  have  had." 

A  few  moments  before  Arner  sent  to  call  him,  Leonard  had  gone  to  the  upper 
village,  and  Gertrude  resolved  to  go  back  herself  to  the  churchyard  with  the 
messenger,  and  tell  Arner  her  anxieties. 

When  the  bailiff  saw  Gertrude  coming  back  with  the  messenger  instead  of 
Leonard,  he  turned  pale. 

Arner  observed  it,  and  said,  "What  is  the  matter,  bailiff?" 

Bailiff.  "  Nothing,  gracious  sir!  nothing  at  all ;  only  I  did  not  sleep  well  last 
night." 

"One  may  tell  that  by  your  looks,"  said  Arner,  looking  steadily  into  his  in- 
flamed eyes.  Then  he  turned  to  Gertrude,  spoke  to  her  kindly,  and  said,  "  Is 
your  husband  not  with  you  ?  You  must  tell  him  to  come  to  me.  I  will  intrust 
the  building  of  this  church  to  him." 

Gertrude  stood  for  a  few  moments  silent,  and  durst  not  say  a  word  before  so 
many  people. 

Arner.  "Why  do  you  not  speak,  Gertrude?  I  will  give  your  husband  the 
work,  upon  the  same  terms  on  which  my  master-builder  would  have  had  it. 
This  ought  to  please  you,  Gertrude." 

Gertrude  had  now  recovered  herself,  and  said,  "  Gracious  sir,  the  church  is  so 
near  the  tavern." 

All  the  people  began  to  smile ;  and  as  most  of  them  wished  to  conceal  this 
from  the  bailiff,  they  turned  away  from  him  toward  Arner. 

The  bailiff,  who  clearly  saw  that  Arner  had  perceived  it  all,  got  up  in  a  pas- 
sion, went  toward  Gertrude,  and  said,  "  W  hat  have  you  to  say  against  my  tavern?" 

Arner  quickly  interrupted  him  and  said,  "  Is  this  your  affair,  bailiff,  that  you 
interfere  about  it  ?"  Then  he  turned  again  to  Gertrude,  and  said,  "  What  do  you 
mean  ?  Why  is  the  church  too  near  the  tavern  ?" 

Ger.  "Gracious  sir,  my  husband  is  easily  enticed  away  by  wine;  and  if  he 
works  every  day  so  near  the  tavern,  I  am  afraid  he  will  not  be  able  to  resist." 

Arner.     "  But  can  not  he  avoid  the  tavern,  if  it  is  so  dangerous  to  him  ?'' 

Ger.  "  Gracious  sir,  when  people  are  working  hard,  and  get  heated,  it  makes 
them  very  thirsty ;  and  if  he  has  always  before  his  eyes  people  drinking  together, 
and  trying  to  entice  him  by  every  kind  of  joviality,  and  jesting,  and  buying 
wine,  and  laying  wagers,  oh !  how  will  he  be  able  to  resist  ?  and  if  he  once  gets 
ever  so  little  into  debt  again,  he  is  fast.  Gracious  sir,  if  you  only  knew  how 


20  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

one  single  evening,  in  such  houses,  can  bring  poor  people  into  slavery  and 
snares,  out  of  which  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  escape  again!" 

Arner.  "  I  do  know  it,  Gertrude  1  and  I  am  angry  about  what  you  told  me 
yesterday ;  and  therefore,  before  your  eyes,  and  before  the  eyes  of  all  these  peo- 
ple, I  will  show  that  I  will  not  have  the  poor  oppressed  and  ill-used.  Then  he 
turned  to  the  bailiff,  and  said,  with  a  solemn  voice,  and  a  look  which  thrilled 
through  his  bones  and  marrow :  "  Bailiff!  is  it  true,  that  poor  people  are  op- 
pressed, and  misled,  and  cheated  in  your  house  ?" 

Confused,  and  pale  as  death,  the  bailiff  answered :  "  Gracious  sir,  such  a  thing 
never  happened  to  me  before  in  my  life, — and  so  long  as  I  live,  and  am 

bailiff" ;  he  wiped  the  perspiration  from  his  face — coughed — cleared  his 

throat,  and  began  again.  "It  is  dreadful" . 

Arner.  u  You  are  disturbed,  bailiff !  The  question  is  a  simple  one.  Is  it  true, 
that  you  oppress  the  poor,  and  lay  snares  for  them  in  your  tavern,  so  as  to  make 
their  homes  unhappy  ?" 

Bailiff.  "  No,  certainly  not,  gracious  sir !  This  is  the  reward  one  gets  for  serving 
such  beggarly  folks.  I  might  have  foreseen  it.  One  always  gets  such  thanks 
instead  of  payment." 

Arner.  "  Trouble  not  yourself  about  payment  now.  The  question  is,  whether 
this  woman  lies." 

Bailiff.     "  Yes,  certainly,  gracious  sir!     I  will  prove  it  a  thousand  fold." 

Arner.  "  Once  is  enough,  bailiff  1  but  take  care.  You  said  yesterday,  that 
Gertrude  was  a  good,  quiet,  hard-working  woman,  and  no  talker." 

"I  don't  know— I — I — thought — you  have — I  thought — her  so ,"  said 

the  gasping  bailiff. 

Arner.  "  You  are  so  troubled,  bailiff,  that  there  is  no  speaking  to  you  now.  It 
will  be  better  for  me  to  find  it  out  from  these  neighbors  here ;  and  immediately 
lie  turned  to  two  old  men  who  stood  by  quietly,  and  with  interest,  observing 
what  passed,  and  said  to  them,  'Is  it  true,  good  neighbors?  are  the  people  led 
away  to  ev;l,  and  oppressed  in  the  tavern  ?'  The  two  men  looked  at  each  other, 
and  durst  not  speak." 

But  Arner  encouraged  them  kindly.  "Do  not  be  afraid!  Tell  me  the  plain 
truth!" 

"It  is  but  too  true,  gracious  sir;  but  how  can  we  poor  people  venture  to  com- 
plain against  the  bailiff?"  said  the  elder  of  the  two  at  last,  but  in  so  low  a  voice, 
that  only  Arner  could  hear  it. 

"It  is  enough,  old  man,"  said  Arner;  and  then  turned  to  the  bailiff. 

"  I  can  not,  at  present,  inquire  fully  into  this  complaint ;  but  certainly  I  will 
have  my  poor  people  secure  against  all  oppression ;  and  I  have  long  thought 
that  no  bailiff  should  keep  tavern.  But  1  will  defer  this  till  Monday.  Gertrude, 
tell  your  husband  to  come  to  me;  and  be  easy,  on  his  account,  about  the 
tavern." 

Then  Arner  transacted  some  other  business ;  and  when  he  had  done,  he  went 
into  the  forest  hard  by ;  and  it  was  late  when  he  arrived  at  home.  The  bailiff, 
too,  who  was  obliged  to  follow  him  into  the  forest,  did  not  get  back  to  the  vil- 
lage till  it  was  night. 

When  he  came  to  his  house,  and  saw  no  light  in  the  room,  and  heard  no 
voices,  he  foreboded  some  misfortune ;  for  usually  the  ho'tose  was  full  every  eve- 
ning, and  all  the  windows  were  lighted  up  by  the  candles  which  stood  upon  the 
tables ;  and  the  shouts  of  those  who  were  drinking,  always  sounded  through 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  21 

the  still  night,  so  that  you  might  have  heard  them  at  the  bottom  of  the  street, 
though  it  is  a  long  one,  and  the  bailiff's  house  stands  at  the  top. 

The  bailiff  was  very  much  startled  by  this  unusual  silence.  He  opened  his 
door  impatiently,  and  said,  "What  is  this?  what  is  this?  Why  is  nobody 
here  ?" 

His  wife  was  sobbing  in  a  corner.  "Oh  husband!  Art  thou  comeback? 
Oh  what  a  misfortune  has  befallen  us !  There  is  a  jubilee  of  thy  enemies  in  the 
village,  and  no  man  dares  come  and  drink  a  single  glass  of  wine  with  us. 
They  all  say  thou  hast  been  taken  through  the  forest  to  Arnburg." 

As  an  imprisoned  wild  boar  foams  in  the  trap,  opens  his  jaws,  rolls  about  his 
eyes,  and  roars  with  anger;  so  did  Hummel  rage.  He  stamped,  and  was  full 
of  fury,  plotted  revenge  against  Arner,  and  cursed  him  for  his  goodness.  Then 
he  spoke  to  himself: 

"Is  this  the  way  to  have  justice  done  in  the  country?  He  will  take  away 
my  license  from  me,  and  be  the  only  person  to  hang  up  a  sign  in  the  manor. 
In  the  memory  of  man,  the  bailiffs  have  all  been  landlords.  All  affairs  have 
gone  through  our  hands.  But  this  man  thrusts  himself  into  every  thing, 
like  a  village  schoolmaster.  Therefore  every  knave  is  become  insolent  to  the 
constables,  and  says  he  can  speak  to  Arner  himself.  Thus  the  law  loses  all  its 
credit,  and  we  sit  still  under  it  and  are  silent,  pitiful  creatures  as  we  are,  whilst 
he  thus  wrongs  and  alters  the  rights  of  the  land." 

Thus  did  the  old  rogue  misrepresent  to  himself  the  good  and  wise  actions  of 
his  excellent  master,  raged  and  plotted  revenge,  till  he  fell  asleep. 

CHAPTER  vi. — CONVERSATION  AMONGST  COUNTRY  PEOPLE. 

IN  the  morning  he  rose  early,  and  sang  and  whistled  at  his  window,  that  peo- 
ple might  think  he  was  perfectly  easy  about  what  had  happened  yesterday.  But 
Fritz,  his  neighbor,  called  to  him  across  the  street :  "  Hast  thou  customers  so 
early,  that  thou  art  so  merry  ?"  and  he  smiled  to  himself  as  he  said  it. 

"  They  will  be  coming  soon,  Fritz !  Hopsasa  and  Heisasa !  Plums  are  not 
figs,"  said  the  bailiff;  and  he  held  a  glass  of  brandy  out  of  the  window,  and 
said:  "Wilt  thou  pledge  me,  Fritz?" 

"It  is  too  soon  for  me,"  answered  Fritz,  "I  will  wait  till  there  is  more  com- 
pany." 

"  Thou  wert  always  a  wag,"  said  the  bailiff,  "but,  depend  upon  it,  yesterday's 
business  will  not  turn  out  so  ill.  No  bird  flies  so  high  that  it  never  comes  down 
again." 

"I  know  not,"  answered  Fritz.  "The  bird  I  am  thinking  of,  has  had  a 
long  flight  of  it;  but  perhaps  we  are  not  speaking  of  the  same  bird,  Mr. 
Bailiff?  They  are  calling  me  to  breakfast!"  and  with  this,  Fritz  shut  down  his 
window. 

'•Short  leave-taking,"  murmured  the  bailiff  to  himself,  and  shook  his  head 
until  his  hair  and  his  cheeks  shook.  "I  shall  have  the  devil  to  pay,  to  get  this 
cursed  business  of  yesterday  out  of  these  people's  heads."  Having  said  this  to 
himself,  he  poured  out  some  brandy,  drank  it  off,  and  said  again:  "Courage! 
time  brings  counsel !  This  is  Saturday.  These  simpletons  will  be  going  to  be 
shaved.  I  will  away  to  the  barber's,  and  give  them  each  a  glass  of  wine.  The 
fellows  always  believe  me  ten  times  before  they  would  half  believe  the  pastor 
once."  ,  So  said  the  bailiff  to  himself;  and  then  added  to  his  wife:  "Fill  my  b<>x 
with  tobacco:  not  with  my  own.  but  with  that  strong  sort — it  suits  such  lei- 


22  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

lows.  And  if  the  barber's  boy  comes  for  wine,  give  him  that  brimstoned  three 
times  over,  and  put  into  each  can  a  glass  of  brandy." 

He  went  out ;  but  whilst  he  was  in  the  street,  and  not  far  from  home,  he  rec- 
ollected himself,  turned  back,  and  said  to  his  wife,  "  There  may  be  knaves  drink- 
ing with  me.  I  must  be  upon  my  guard.  Get  me  some  yellow-colored  water ; 
and  when  I  send  for  the  La  Cote,  bring  it  thyself."  He  then  went  out  again. 

But  before  he  arrived  at  the  barber's,  and  under  the  lime-trees  near  the  school 
he  met  Nickel  Spitz  and  Jogli  Rubel. 

"  Whither  away,  in  thy  Sunday  clothes,  Mr.  Bailiff?"  asked  Nickel  Spitz. 

Bailiff.     "  I  am  going  to  get  shaved." 

Nickel.     "It's  odd  thou  hast  time  for  it,  on  a  Saturday  morning." 

Bailiff.     "  That's  true.     It  is  not  so  the  year  through." 

Nick.  <;  No !  It  is  not  long  since  thou  earnest  always  on  a  Sunday,  between 
morning  prayers,  to  the  barber." 

Bailiff.     "  Yes,  a  time  or  two." 

Nick.  "  A  time  or  two !  The  two  last,  I  think.  Since  the  pastor  had  thy  dog 
driven  out  of  the  church,  thou  hast  never  been  within  his  premises." 

Bailiff.  "  Thou  art  a  fool,  Nickel,  to  talk  so.  We  must  forgive  and  forget ;  the 
driving  the  dog  away,  has  long  been  out  of  my  head." 

Nick.     "  I  would  not  trust  to  that,  if  I  were  the  pastor." 

Bailiff.  "  Thou  art  a  simpleton,  Nickel ;  why  should  he  not  ?  But  come  into 
the  room,  there  will  be  some  drinking  ere  long." 

Nick.  "  Thou  wouldst  look  sharp  after  the  barber,  if  he  had  any  drinking 
going  on  in  his  house." 

Bailiff.  "  I  am  not  half  so  jealous  as  that  comes  to.  They  are  for  taking  away 
my  license ;  but  Nickel,  we  are  not  come  to  that  yet.  At  all  events,  we  shall 
have  six  weeks  and  three  days,  before  that  time  arrives." 

Nick.  "  So  I  suppose.  But  it  is  no  good  thing  for  thee,  that  the  young  squire 
does  not  follow  his  grandfather's  creed." 

Bailiff.     "  Truly,  he  does  not  believe  quite  as  his  grandfather  did." 

Nick.     "  I  suspect  they  diifer  about  every  article  of  the  twelve." 

Bailiff.     "  It  may  be  so.     But  the  old  man's  belief  was  the  best,  to  my  fancy." 

Nick.  "No  doubt!  The  first  article  of  his  creed  was:  I  believe  in  thee,  my 
bailiff." 

Bailiff.     "  Thou  art  facetious,  Nickel !  but  what  was  the  next  ?" 

Nick.  "  I  don't  know  exactly.  I  think  it  was :  I  believe  in  no  man  but  thee, 
my  bailiff,  not  a  single  word." 

Bailiff.  "Thou  shouldst  have  been  a  pastor,  Nickel:  thou  couldst  not  only 
have  explained  the  catechism,  but  put  a  new  one  in  its  place." 

Nick.  "  They  would  not  let  me  do  that.  If  they  did,  I  should  make  it  so  clear 
and  plain,  that  the  children  would  understand  it  without  the  pastor,  and  then  he 
would  naturally  be  of  no  use." 

Bailiff.  "  We  will  keep  to  the  old,  Nickel.  It  is  the  same  about  the  catechism 
as  about  every  thing  else  to  my  mind.  We  shall  not  better  ourselves  by  changing." 

Nick.  "  That  is  a  maxim  which  is  sometimes  true,  and  sometimes  not.  It  seems 
to  suit  thee  now  with  the  new  squire." 

Bailiff.  "  It  will  suit  others  too,  if  we  wait  patiently,  and  for  my  own  part,  I 
am  not  so  much  afraid  of  the  new  squire.  Every  man  finds  his  master." 

Nick.  "  Very  true :  but  there  was  an  end  of  the  old  times  for  thee,  last 
summer." 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  23 

Bailiff.  "  At  all  events,  Nickel,  I  have  had  my  share  of  them.  Let  others  try 
now." 

Nick.  "  True,  thou  hast  had  thy  share,  and  a  very  good  one  it  was ;  but,  how 
could  it  miss  ?  The  secretary,  the  attorney,  and  the  late  pastor's  assistant,  all 
owed  thee  money." 

Bailiff.     "  People  said  so,  but  it  was  not  true." 

Nick.  "Thou  mayst  say  so  now;  but  thou  hadst  an  action  brought  against 
two  of  them,  because  the  money  did  not  come  back." 

Bailiff.     "  Thou  fool,  thou  knowest  every  thing." 

Nick.  "  I  know  a  great  deal  more  than  that.  I  know  thy  tricks  with  Rudi's 
father,  and  how  I  caught  thee  by  the  dog-kennel,  under  the  heap  of  straw,  lying 
on  thy  face,  close  to  Rudi's  window ;  his  attorney  was  with  him.  Till  two  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  didst  thou  listen  to  what  they  were  saying  in  the  room.  I  was 
watchman  that  night,  and  had  wine  gratis  at  thy  house,  for  a  week  after,  for  my 
silence." 

Bailiff.  "Thou  heretic:  there  is  not  a  word  of  truth  in  what  thou  sayest.  It 
would  be  pretty  work  for  thee,  if  thou  wert  made  to  prove  it." 

Nick.  "  I  was  not  talking  about  proving  it,  but  thou  knowest  whether  it  be  true 
or  not." 

Bailiff.     "  Thou  hadst  better  take  back  thy  words." 

Nick.  "  The  devil  put  it  into  thy  head  to  listen  under  the  straw,  in  the  night. 
Thou  couldst  hear  every  word,  and  then  easily  twist  thy  evidence  with  the 
attorney." 

Bailiff.     "  How  thou  talkest !" 

Nick.  "  How  I  talk  ?  If  the  attorney  had  not  wrested  thy-  evidence  before  the 
court,  Rudi  would  have  had  his  meadow  now,  and  Wast  and  Kaibacker  needed 
not  have  taken  their  fine  oaths." 

Bailiff.  "  Truly,  thou  understandest  the  business,  as  well  as  the  schoolmaster 
does  Hebrew." 

Nick.  "  Whether  I  understand  it  or  not,  I  learned  it  from  thee.  More  than 
twenty  times  thou  hast  laughed  with  me,  at  thy  obedient  servant,  Mr.  attorney." 

Bailiff.  "  Yes,  so  I  have ;  but  he  did  not  do  what  thou  sayest.  It  is  true,  he 
was  a  cunning  devil.  God  forgive  him.  It  will  be  ten  years,  next  Michaelmas, 
since  he  was  laid  in  his  grave." 

Nick.     "  Since  he  was  sent  to  hell,  thou  shouldst  say." 

Bailiff.     "  That  is  not  right.     We  should  not  speak  ill  of  the  dead." 

Nick.     "Very  true;  or  else  I  could  tell  how  he  cheated  Roppi's  children." 

Bailiff.  "  He  might  have  confessed  himself  to  thee,  on  his  death-bed,  thou 
knowest  it  all  so  well" 

Nick.     "  I  know  it,  at  any  rate." 

Bailiff.  "  The  best  part  of  it  is,  that  I  gained  the  action :  if  thou  hadst  known 
that  I  had  lost  it,  it  would  have  troubled  me." 

Nick.     "Nay,  I  know  that  thou  didst  gain  it,  but  I  also  know  how." 

Bailiff.     "Perhaps;  perhaps  not." 

Nick.     "  God  keep  all  poor  folks  from  law." 

Bailiff.  "Thou  art  right  there.  ^  Only  gentle-folks  and  people  well  off  in  the 
world,  should  go  to  law.  That  would  certainly  be  a  good  thing;  but  so  would 
many  other  things,  Nickel.  Well,  well,  we  must  be  content  with  things  as  they 
are." 

Nick.     "  Bailiff,  that  wise  saying  of  thine  puts  me  in  mind  of  a  fable  I  heard 


24  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

from  a  pilgrim.  He  came  out  of  Alsace,  and  told  it  before  a  whole  room  full  of 
people.  A  hermit  had  described  the  world  in  a  book  of  fables,  and  he  could 
repeat  it  almost  from  beginning  to  end.  "We  asked  him  to  tell  us  some  of  these 
fables,  and  he  related  that  which  thou  remindest  me  of." 

Bailiff.     "  Well,  what  was  it,  prater  ?" 

Nick.  "  By  good  luck,  I  think  I  remember  it.  'A  sheep  was  complaining  and 
lamenting  that  the  wolf,  the  dog,  the  fox,  and  the  butcher,  tormented  her  terri- 
bly. A  fox,  that  was  standing  near  the  fold,  heard  the  complaint,  and  said  to 
the  sheep :  we  must  always  be  content  with  the  wise  regulations  of  the  world. 
If  there  were  any  change  it  would  be  for  the  worse. 

That  may  be  true,  when  the  fold  is  shut,  answered  the  sheep ;  but  if  it  were 
open,  I,  for  one,  should  not  agree  with  you. 

It  is  right  enough  that  there  should  be  wolves,  foxes,  and  wild  beasts ;  but 
it  is  also  right,  that  the  fold  should  be  carefully  looked  after,  and  that  poor  weak 
animals  should  have  watchful  shepherds  and  dogs,  to  protect  them  from  wild 
beasts.' 

'  Heaven  preserve  us,'  added  the  pilgrim ;  '  there  are  eveiy  where  plenty  of  wild 
beasts,  and  but  few  good  shepherds.' 

'  Great  God,  thou  knowest  wherefore  it  is  so,  and  we  must  submit  silently.' 
His  comrades  added :  '  yes,  we  must  submit  silently ;  and  holy  virgin,  pray  for  us 
now,  and  in  the  hour  of  our  death.' 

We  were  all  affected  when  the  pilgrim  spoke  so  feelingly,  and  we  could  not 
go  on  chattering  our  nonsense  as  usual." 

Bailiff.  "It's  fine  talking  about  such  silly  fancies  of  the  sheep;  according  to 
which,  wolves,  foxes,  and  other  wild  beasts  must  die  of  hunger." 

Nick.     "  It  would  be  no  great  harm  if  they  did." 

Bailiff.     "  Art  thou  sure  of  that  ?" 

Nick.  "Nay,  I  spoke  foolishly;  they  need  not  die  of  hunger :  they  might 
always  find  carrion  and  wild  creatures,  and  these  belong  to  them,  and  not  tame 
animals,  which  must  be  brought  up,  and  kept  with  labor  and  cost." 

Bailiff.  "  Thou  wouldst  not  then  have  them  altogether  die  of  hunger.  That  is 
a  great  deal  for  such  a  friend  of  tame  animals  to  allow ;  but  I  am  starved,  come 
into  the  room." 

Nick.     "  I  can  not,  I  must  go  on." 

Bailiff.  "  Good-bye  then,  neighbors ;"  and  he  went  away.  Eubel  and  Nickel 
looked  at  each  other  for  a  moment,  and  Eubel  said,  "  Thou  hast  salted  his  meat 
for  him." 

Nick.  "  I  wish  it  had  been  peppered  too,  and  so  that  it  might  have  burnt  his 
tongue  till  to-morrow." 

Rubel     "A  week  ago,  thou  durst  not  thus  have  spoken  to  him." 

Nick.     "And  a  week  ago  he  would  not  have  answered  as  he  did." 

Rubel.  "  That  is  true.  He  is  grown  as  tame  as  my  dog,  the  first  day  it  had  its 
muzzle  on." 

Nick.  "  When  the  cup  is  full  it  will  run  over.  That  has  been  true  of  many  a 
man,  and  it  will  be  true  of  the  bailiff." 

Rubel  "  Heaven  keep  us  from  officers !  I  would  not  be  a  bailiff,  with  his  two 
courts." 

Nick.  "But  if  anybody  offered  thee  half  of  one,  and  the  office  of  bailiff,  what 
wouldst  thou  do?" 

Rultd.     "Thou  fool!" 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  25 

Nick.     "  Thou  wise  man  1  what  wouldst  thou  do  ?  come,  confess ;  thou  wouldst 
quickly  consent,  wrap  the  cloak  of  two  colors  around  thee,  and  be  bailiff." 
JRulel.     "  Dost  thou  think  so  ?" 
Nick.     "Yes,  I  do  think  so." 

Rubtl.     "  We  are  losing  time  chattering  here.     Good-bye,  Nickel." 
Nick.     "  Good-bye,  Rubel." 

CHAPTER  vn. — THE  BAILIFF  BEGINS  SOME  BAILIFF'S  BUSINESS. 

As  soon  as  the  bailiff  entered  the  barber's  room,  he  saluted  him,  and  his  wife, 
and  the  company,  before  he  seated  himself,  or  made  any  bustle.  Formerly,  he 
used  to  make  a  great  spitting  and  coughing  first,  and  took  no  notice  of  anybody, 
till  he  had  seated  himself. 

The  country  people  answered,  smilingly,  and  put  their  hats  on  again,  much 
sooner  than  they  usually  did,  when  the  bailiff  spoke  to  them.  He  began  the 
conversation  by  saying,  "Always  good  pay,  Mr.  Barber,  and  so  much  custom; 
I  wonder  how  you  manage  to  get  through  it,  with  one  pair  of  hands." 

The  barber  was  a  quiet  man,  and  not  in  the  habit  of  replying  to  such  speeches ; 
but  the  bailiff  had  been  teasing  him  with  these  jests  for  several  months  past, 
and  every  Sunday  morning  in  sermon-time ;  and  as  it  happened,  he  took  it  into 
his  head  to  answer  him  for  once,  and  said  : 

"  Mr.  Bailiff,  you  need  not  wonder  how  people  manage  to  work  hard,  with 
one  pair  of  hands,  and  get  little ;  but  it  is,  indeed,  a  wonder  how  some  people 
manage  to  sit  with  their  hands  before  them,  doing  nothing  at  all,  and  yet  get  a 
great  deal." 

Bailiff.  <;  True  enough,  barber;  but  thou  shouldst  try.  The  thing  is,  to  keep 
the  hands  still,  in  the  right  way :  then,  money  showers  down  like  rain." 

The  barber  made  another  attempt,  and  said:  "Nay,  bailiff,  the  way  is,  to 
wrap  one's  self  up  in  a  two-colored  cloak,  and  say  these  three  words :  It  is  so, 
on  my  oath,  It  is  so.  If  the  time  be  well  chosen,  one  may  then  put  two  fingers 
up,  three  down — abracadabra!  and  behold  a  bag  full  of  gold." 

This  put  the  bailiff  into  a  passion,  and  he  answered,  "  Thou  art  a  conjuror, 
barber !  but  there  is  no  wonder  in  that.  People  of  thy  trade  always  understand 
witchcraft  and  conjuring." 

This  was  too  sharp  for  the  good  barber,  and  he  repented  having  meddled  with 
the  bailiff;  so  he  held  his  peace,  and  let  the  others  talk,  and  began  quietly 
lathering  a  man  who  was  sitting  before  him.  The  bailiff  continued,  maliciously : 
"  The  barber  is  quite  a  fine  gentleman,  he  will  not  answer  one  again.  He  wears 
smart  stockings,  town-made  shoes,  and  ruffles  on  a  Sunday.  He  has  hands  as 
smooth  as  a  squire's,  and  his  legs  are  like  a  town-clerk's." 

The  country  people  liked  the  barber,  had  heard  this  before,  and  did  not  laugh 
at  the  bailiff's  wit. 

Only  young  Galli,  who  was  being  shaved,  could  not  help  smiling  at  the  idea 
of  the  town-clerk's  legs;  for  he  was  just  come  from  the  office,  where  the  jest 
had  begun ;  but  when  his  face  moved,  the  barber's  razor  cut  his  upper  lip. 

This  vexed  the  people  ;  they  shook  their  heads,  and  old  Uli  took  his  pipe  out 
of  his  mouth,  and  said : 

"  Bailiff,  it  is  not  right  to  disturb  the  barber  in  this  way." 

And  when  the  others  saw  that  old  Uli  was  not  afraid,  and  said  this  boldly, 
they  murmured  still  more  loudly,  and  said :  "  Galli  is  bleeding,  nobody  can  be 
shaved  at  this  rate." 


20  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

"I  am  sorry  for  what  has  happened,"  said  the  bailiff,  "but  I  will  set  all  to 
rights  again." 

"  Boy !  fetch  three  flasks  of  good  wine,  which  heals  wounds  without  needing 
to  be  warmed." 

The  moment  the  bailiff  spoke  of  wine,  the  first  murmur  subsided. 

Some  did  not  believe  that  he  was  in  earnest;  but  Lenk,  who  was  sitting  in  a 
corner,  solved  the  riddle,  saying:  "The  bailiff's  wine  was  tapped  yesterday,  in 
the  church-yard." 

The  bailiff,  taking  his  tobacco-box  out  of  his  pocket,  laid  it  on  the  table,  and 
Christian,  the  ballad-singer,  asked  him  for  a  pipe-full.  He  gave  it  him ;  then 
more  followed  his  example,  and  the  room  was  soon  full  of  the  smoke  of  this 
strong  tobacco,  but  the  bailiff  smoked  a  better  kind  himself. 

Meantime  the  barber  and  the  other  neighbors  kept  quiet,  and  made  light  of  it. 

This  disturbed  Master  TJrias.  He  went  up  and  down  the  room,  with  his 
finger  on  his  nose,  as  he  always  did,  when  he  could  not  get  rid  of  his  vexation. 

"It  is  devilish  cold  in  this  room;  I  can  never  smoke  when  it  is  so  cold,"  said 
he.  So  he  went  out  of  the  room,  gave  the  maid  a  kreuzer  to  make  a  larger  fire, 
and  it  was  soon  warm  enough. 

CHAPTER  vm. — WHEN  THE  WHEELS  ARE  GREASED  THE  WAGON  GOES. 

Now  came  the  brimstoned  wine.  "  Glasses,  glasses  here,  Mr.  Barber,"  said 
the  bailiff.  And  the  wife  and  the  boy  soon  brought  plenty. 

All  the  neighbors  drew  near  the  wine  flasks,  and  the  bailiff  poured  out  for  them. 

Now  were  old  Uli,  and  all  the  rest,  content  again ;  and  young  Galli's  wound 
was  not  worth,  mentioning.  "  If  the  simpleton  had  only  sat  still,  the  barber 
would  not  have  cut  him." 

By  degrees  they  all  grew  talkative,  and  loud  sounds  of  merriment  arose. 

All  praised  the  bailiff;  and  the  mason,  Leonard,  was  at  one  table  abused  for 
a  lout,  and  at  the  other  for  a  beggar. 

One  told  how  he  got  drunk  every  day,  and  now  played  the  saint ;  another 
said,  "  He  knew  well  why  pretty  Gertrude  went,  instead  of  the  mason,  to  the 
squire  at  the  hall:"  and  another,  "That  he  dreamed,  last  night,  that  the  bailiff 
would  soon  serve  the  mason  according  to  his  deserts." 

As  an  unclean  bird  buries  its  beak  in  the  ditch,  and  feeds  upon  rotten  garbage, 
so  did  Hummel  satiate  his  wicked  heart  on  the  conversation  of  the  neighbors. 
Yet  it  was  with  great  caution  and  watchfulness  that  he  mingled  in  the  wild  up- 
roar of  the  chattering  drunkards. 

"Neighbor  Richter,"  said  he,  giving  him  a  glass,  "you  were  yourself  at  the 
last  reckoning,  and  are  a  qualified  man.  You  know  that  the  mason  owed  me 
thirty  florins.  It  is  now  half  a  year  since,  and  he  has  not  paid  me  any  part  of  it. 
I  have  never  once  asked  him  for  the  money,  nor  given  him  a  hard  word,  and  yet 
it  is  likely  enough  that  I  shall  lose  every  farthing  of  it." 

"  That  is  clear  enough,"  swore  the  farmers,  "  thou  wilt  never  see  another 
farthing  of  thy  money;"  and  they  poured  out  more  wine. 

But  the  bailiff  took  out  of  his  pocket  book  the  mason's  promissory  note,  laid 
it  on  the  table,  and  said,  "  There  you  may  see  whether  it  be  true,  or  not." 

The  countrymen  looked  over  the  writing,  as  if  they  could  read  it,  and  said, 
"  He  is  a  rogue,  that  mason." 

And  Christian,  the  ballad-singer,  who,  till  now,  had  been  quietly  swallowm? 
down  the  wine,  wiped  his  mouth  with  his  coat  sleeve,  got  up,  raised  his  glass, 
and  shouted  out, 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  2*7 

Long  life  to  the  bailiff,  and  away  with  all  firebrands ;"  so  saying,  he  drank  off 
the  glass,  held  it  to  be  filled,  drank  again,  and  sang : 

44  He  who  digs  another's  grave, 

Into  it,  himself  may  slip  ; 
Who  ne'er  lifts  a  hand  to  save, 

Should  be  careful  not  to  trip. 

"  Be  he  lifted  e'er  so  high, 

And  cunning  as  the  deuce  withal, 
He  who  will  still  in  ambush  lie, 
Is  sure,  at  last,  himself  to  fall — 
Himself  to  fall. 
Juhe,  mason  !  juhe  !" 

CHAPTER  ix. — ox  THE  RIGHTS  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 

"NOT  so  riotous,  Christian,"  said  the  bailiff;  "that  is  of  no  use.  I  should  be 
very  sorry  if  any  ill  luck  happened  to  the  mason.  I  forgive  him  freely.  He  did 
it  from  poverty.  Still  it  is  hard  that  the  country  must  lose  its  rights." 

The  neighbors  opened  their  ears  when  he  spoke  of  the  country's  rights. 

Some  put  down  their  glasses,  when  they  heard  of  the  country's  rights,  and 
listened. 

"I  am  an  old  man,  neighbors,  and  it  can  not  signify  much  to  me.  I  have  no 
children,  and  it  is  almost  over  with  me.  But  you  have  sons,  neighbors;  to 
you,  your  rights  are  of  great  consequence." 

"  Ay !  our  rights !"  called  out  the  men.  "  You  are  our  bailiff.  Do  not  let  us 
lose  a  hair  of  our  rights." 

Bailiff.  "  Yes,  neighbors.  The  landlord's  license  is  a  parish  concern,  and  a 
valuable  one.  We  must  defend  ourselves." 

Some  few  of  the  men  shook  their  heads,  and  whispered  to  each  other,  "He 
never  looked  after  the  parish  before — he  wants  to  draw  us  into  the  mud  where 
he  is  sticking," 

But  the  majority  shouted  louder  and  louder,  stormed,  and  cursed,  and  swore 
that  to-morrow  there  must  be  a  parish  meeting. 

The  wiser  amongst  them  were  silent,  and  only  said,  quietly,  to  each  other, 
"  "We  shall  see  what  they  do  when  the  wine  is  out  of  their  heads." 

Meantime  the  bailiff  kept  prudently  drinking  of  the  colored  water,  and  began 
again  to  rouse  up  the  people  about  their  rights. 

"You  all  know,"  said  he,  "how  our  forefather,  Ruppli,  two  hundred  years 
ago,  had  to  fight  with  the  cruel  ancestors  of  this  squire.  This  old  Ruppli,  (my 
grandfather  has  told  me  of  it  a  thousand  times,)  had  a  favorite  saying,  '  When 
the  squires  welcome  beggars  at  the  hall,  God  help  the  country  people.'  They 
do  it  only  to  make  mischief  amongst  them,  and  then  to  be  masters  themselves. 
Neighbors,  we  are  thus  always  to  be  the  fools  in  the  game." 

Countrymen.  "  Nothing  is  clearer.  We  are  thus  always  to  be  the  fools  in  the 
game."  « 

Bailiff.  "  When  your  lawyers  can  be  of  no  more  use,  you  are  as  ill  off  as 
soldiers,  who  have  their  retreat  cut  off.  The  new  squire  is  as  sharp  and  cunning 
as  the  devil.  No  man  can  see  through  him ;  and  certainly  he  gives  no  one  a 
good  word  for  nothing.  If  you  knew  but  half  as  much  as  I  do,  there  would  be 
no  need  for  me  to  say  another  word  to  you.  But  you  are  not  quite  blockheads ; 
you  will  take  heed,  and  be  on  your  guard." 

Abi,  to  whom  the  bailiff  was  speaking,  and  to  whom  he  made  a  sign,  answered, 


28  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

"Do  you  think,  bailiff,  that  we  do  not  perceive  his  drift?  He  wants  to  take  the 
landlord's  license  into  his  own  hands." 

Bailiff.     "You  see  through  it,  do  you?" 

Countrymen.  "  Ay,  by  G !  but  we  will  not  allow  it.  Our  children  shall 

have  a  free  tavern,  as  we  have  had." 

Abi.  "  He  may  choose  to  make  us  pay  a  ducat  for  a  measure  of  wine ;  and  we 
should  be  false  to  our  own  children." 

Bailiff.  "  That  is  going  too  far,  Abi.  He  can  never  make  you  pay  a  ducat  for 
a  measure  of  wine." 

Abi.  "  I  don't  know.  The  smith  and  the  cartwright  are  raising  their  prices 
shamefully ;  and  even  wood  is  dearer  than  it  has  been  these  fifty  years.  What 
say  you,  bailiff?  As  the  twig  is  bent,  so  grows  the  tree.  How  can  you  tell 
how  high  a  measure  of  wine  may  get,  when  nobody  can  sell  it  but  the  squire  ? 
It  is  devilish  dear  already,  on  account  of  the  duty." 

Bailiff.  "  So  it  is.  There  is  always  some  new  plague  and  difficulty,  and  that 
makes  every  thing  dearer." 

"Yes,  yes,  if  we  will  submit  to  it!"  said  the  men,  shouting  and  roaring,  and 
threatening.  Their  conversation  became,  at  last,  the  wild  uproar  of  a  set  of 
drunkards,  which  I  can  describe  no  further. 

CHAPTER  x. — THE  BARBER'S  DOG  DRINKS  UP  WATER  AT  AN  UNLUCKY  MOMENT, 

AND   PLAYS   THE   BAILIFF   A   SAD   TRICK. 

MOST  of  them  were,  by  this  time,  pretty  well  intoxicated,  particularly  Chris- 
tian the  ballad-singer,  who  sat  next  the  bailiff;  and,  in  one  of  his  drunken 
huzzas,  knocked  over  the  jug  of  water. 

The  bailiff,  alarmed,  wiped  the  colored  water  off  the  table  as  quickly  as  he 
could,  that  nobody  might  detect  the  cheat.  But  the  barber's  dog,  under  the 
table,  was  thirsty,  and  lapped  the  water  from  the  ground ;  and,  unluckily,  one 
of  the  neighbors,  who  was  looking  sorrowfully  after  the  good  wine  under  the 
table,  observed  that  Hector  licked  it  up. 

"  "Wonder  and  marks,  bailiff'  said  he,  "  how  long  have  dogs  drank  wine  ?" 

"You  fool,  long  enough!"  answered  the  bailiff,  and  made  signs  to  him  with 
his  hands  and  head,  and  pushed  him,  with  his  foot,  under  the  table,  to  be  silent. 
He  kicked  the  dog,  at  the  same  time,  to  drive  him  away.  But  Hector  did  not 
understand  him,  for  he  belonged  to  the  barber.  He  barked,  snarled,  and  lapped 
up  the  colored  water  a  little  further  off.  The  bailiff  turned  pale  at  this ;  for 
many  of  the  others  now  began  to  look  under  the  table,  and  lay  their  heads  to- 
gether, and  point  to  the  dog.  The  barber's  wife  took  up  the  fragments  of  the 
broken  pitcher,  and  smelt  at  them,  and  perceiving  that  it  was  only  water,  shook 
her  head,  and  said,  aloud,  "  This  is  not  right." 

The  men  murmured  all  round;  "There's  something  hidden  under  this;"  and 
the  barber  told  the  bailiff,  to  his  face,  "  Bailiff,  your  fine  wine  is  nothing  but 
colored  water." 

"Is  it  not,  indeed?"  exclaimed  the  men. 

"What  the  devil  is  the  meaning  of  this,  bailiff?     Why  do  you  drink  water?" 

The  bailiff,  confused,  answered,  "I  am  not  very  well;  I  am  obliged  to  spare 
myself." 

But  the  men  did  not  believe  the  answer;  and  right  and  left  they  murmured 
more  and  more;  "There  is  something  wrong  in  this." 

And  now  some  began  to  complain  that  the  wine  had  got  into  their  heads, 
which  such  a  small  quantity  should  not  have  done. 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  29 

The  two  wisest  amongst  them  got  up,  paid  the  barber,  and  said,  "good-bye, 
neighbors,"  and  went  toward  the  door. 

"So  soon,  gentlemen!  "Why  do  you  leave  the  company  so  soon?"  said  the 
bailiff. 

"  We  have  something  else  to  do,"  answered  the  men,  and  went  out. 

The  barber  accompanied  them  out  of  the  room,  and  said,  "I  wish  the  bailiff 
had  gone  instead  of  you.  He  has  had  no  good  intention,  either  with  the  wine 
or  the  water." 

"So  we  think,  or  we  would  have  staid,"  answered  the  men. 

Barber.     "And  I  can  not  endure  this  drunken  rioting." 

Men.  There  is  no  reason  why  thou  shouldst ;  and  it  may  bring  thee  into  dif- 
ficulties. "If  I  were  in  thy  place,  I  would  put  an  end  to  it,"  said  the  elder  of 
the  two. 

"I  dare  not  do  that,"  replied  the  barber. 

"  Things  are  not  as  they  were,  and  thou  art  master  in  thy  own  house,"  said 
the  men. 

"I  will  follow  your  advice,"  said  the  barber,  and  went  back  into  the  room. 

"What  is  the  matter  with  these  gentlemen,  that  they  are  gone  off  so  sud- 
denly?" said  the  bailiff. 

And  the  barber  answered,  "I  am  of  their  mind.  Such  rioting  is  unseemly, 
and  does  not  suit  my  house." 

Bailiff.     "So,  sol  and  is  this  your  answer?" 

Barber.     "Yes,  indeed,  it  is,  Mr.  Bailiff.     I  like  a  quiet  house." 

This  dispute  did  not  please  the  honorable  company. 

"We  will  be  quieter,"  said  one  of  them. 

"We  will  behave  well,"  said  another. 

"  Come,  come,  let  us  all  be  friends,"  said  a  third. 

"Bailiff,  another  flask!  "  said  Christian. 

"  Ha,  neighbors !  I  have  a  room  of  my  own.  We  will  leave  the  barber  in 
peace,"  said  the  bailiff. 

"I  shall  be  very  glad  of  it,"  answered  the  barber. 

"But  the  parish  business  is  forgotten,  and  the  landlord's  rights,  neighbors!" 
said  old  Abi,  who  was  thirsty  yet. 

"Follow  me,  all  who  are  true  men,"  said  the  bailiff,  threateningly, — muttering 
"  donner  and  wetter,"  and  looking  fiercely  round  the  room.  He  said  good-bye  to 
nobody,  and  clapped  the  door  after  him  so  furiously,  that  the  room  shook. 

"  This  is  shameful !  "  said  the  barber. 

"Yes;  it  is  shameful,"  said  many  of  the  men. 

"It  is  not  right,"  said  young  Meyer.  "I,  for  one,  will  not  enter  the  bailiff's 
house." 

"Nor  I,"  added  Laupi. 

"The  devil,  nor  I!"  said  Reynold.  "I  remember  yesterday  morning.  I 
stood  next  to  him  and  Arner,  and  saw  how  it  was." 

The  neighbors  looked  at  each  other,  to  see  what  they  should  do ;  but  most 
of  them  sat  down  again,  and  staid  where  they  were. 

Only  Abi  and  Christian,  and  a  couple  of  blockheads  more,  took  up  the  bailiff's 
empty  cans,  and  went  after  him. 

The  bailiff  was  looking  out  of  his  window,  down  the  street,  which  led  to  the 
barber's  house,  and  as  nobody  followed  at  first,  he  was  vexed  at  himself. 

"What  a  lame  ox  I  am!     It  is  almost  noon,  and  I  have  done  nothing  yet. 


30  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

The  wine  is  drunk  and  now  they  laugh  at  me.  I  have  blabbed  to  them  like  a 
child,  and  let  myself  down,  as  if  I  had  been  one  of  them.  Now,  if  I  had  really 
meant  well  by  these  fellows;  if  I  had  really  desired  to  serve  the  parish;  or,  if 
I  had  only  kept  up  the  appearance  of  it  a  little  better,  I  should  have  succeeded. 
Such  a  parish  as  this  will  dance  after  any  cunning  piper,  who  can  only  persuade 
them  he  means  well  by  them.  But  times  have  been  only  too  good  for  me.  In 
the  old  squire's  time,  I  led  the  parish  about  like  a  he-goat.  Ever  since  I  have 
been  bailiff,  it  has  been  my  pastime  and  delight  to  abuse  them,  tease  them,  and 
master  them ;  and  even  now  I  mean  to  do  so  more  than  ever.  But  the"n,  J  must 
and  will  keep  them  at  a  distance.  Shaking  hands  and  lowering  one's  self;  ask- 
ing advice,  and  acting  like  everybody's  brother-in-law,  does  not  do,  where  peo- 
ple are  so  well  known.  Such  a  man  as  I  am,  must  quietly  act  for  himself;  only 
employ  such  people  as  he  knows,  and  Jet  the  parish  alone.  A  herdsman  does 
not  ask  advice  of  his  oxen,  and  yet  I  have  been  fool  enough  to  do  so  to-day." 

Now  came  the  men  with  the  empty  cans. 

"Are  you  alone?    "Would  not  the  dogs  come  with  you?" 

"  No,  not  a  man,"  answered  Abi. 

Bailiff.     "  That  is  going  a  good  way." 

Christian.     "  I  think  so  too." 

Bailiff.  "I  should  like  to  know  what  they  are  talking  and  consulting  to- 
gether. Christian,  go  and  seek  the  other  cans." 

Christian.     "  There  are  none  left  there." 

Bailiff.  "  Blockhead !  «It's  all  one  for  that.  If  thou  findest  none,  get  thyself 
shaved  or  bled,  and  wait  to  listen  to  what  they  say.  If  thou  bringest  me  any 
news,  I  will  drink  with  thee  till  morning.  And  thou,  Loli,  go  to  the  mason's 
old  comrade,  Joseph,  but  take  care  that  no  one  observes  thee,  tell  him  to  come 
to  me  at  noon." 

"Give  me  another  glass  first,  I  am  thirsty,"  said  Loli,  "and  then  I'll  run  like 
a  greyhound,  and  be  back  again  in  a  twinkling." 

"Very  well,"  said  the  bailiff,  and  gave  him  one. 

These  two  went  off,  and  the  bailiff's  wife  set  some  wine  before  the  others. 

CHAPTER  xi. — WELL-LAID  PLOTS  OF  A  ROGUE. 

THE  bailiff  himself  went,  in  some  perplexity,  into  the  next  room,  and  considered 
how  he  should  manage  matters  when  Joseph  came. 

"He  is  faithless,  that  I  may  depend  upon,  and  cunning  as  the  devil.  lie  has 
drunk  away  several  crowns  of  his  master's  money ;  but  my  demand  is  a  great 
one.  He  will  be  afraid,  and  not  trust  me.  It  is  almost  noon.  I  will  offer  him 
as  much  as  ten  crowns.  If  he  will  do  as  I  bid  him,  within  three  weeks  all  the 
plaster  will  fall  off  the  building.  I  shall  not  grudge  ten  crowns,"  said  the  bailiff; 
and  as  he  was  speaking  thus  to  himself,  Loli  arrived,  with  Joseph  behind  him. 
They  did  not  come  together,  that  they  might  excite  less  suspicion. 

"  Good  day,  Joseph !  I  suppose  thy  master  does  not  know  that  thou  art  here." 

Joseph  answered,  "  IK  is  still  at  the  hall,  but  he  will  come  back  at  noon.  If 
I  am  at  work  again  by  one  o'clock,  he  will  never  miss  me." 

"Very  well.  I  have  something  to  say  to  thee,  Joseph.  "We  must  be  alone," 
said  the  bailiff;  and,  taking  him  into  the  inner  room,  he  shut  the  door  and  bolted 
it.  There  were  bacon,  vegetables,  wine,  and  bread,  upon  the  table.  The  bailiff 
placed  two  chairs  by  the  table,  and  said  to  Joseph,  "Thou  wilt  miss  thy  dinner; 
git  down  and  eat  it  with  me." 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  31 

""With  all  my  heart,"  answered  Joseph — sat  down,  and  said,  "Mr.  Bailiff, 
•what  is  it  you  want?  I  am  at  your  service." 

The  bailiff  answered,  "To  thy  good  health,  Joseph!"  drank,  and  then  con- 
tinued the  conversation.  "Try  these  vegetables:  they  are  good.  Why  dost 
thou  not  help  thyself?  Thou  hast  hard  times  enough  with  thy  master." 

Joseph.     " True;  but  it  will  be  better  when  he  has  work  at  the  hall." 

Bailiff.  "  Thou  art  a  fool,  Joseph !  Thou  mayest  easily  imagine  how  long 
that  will  last.  I  wish  him  joy  of  it;  but  he  is  not  the  man  for  such  a  thing. 
He  has  naver  had  the  management  of  any  thing  of  the  sort :  but  he  will  trust 
all  to  thee,  Joseph." 

Joseph.     "May  be  so." 

Bailiff.  "  I  foresaw  that,  and  therefore  wished  to  speak  to  thee.  Thou  canst 
do  me  a  great  favor." 

Joseph.  "  I  am  all  attention,  Mr.  Bailiff.  Here's  luck  to  my  master,"  (drink- 
ing.} 

"It  shall  not  be  for  nothing,  mason,"  said  the  bailiff,  and  helped  him  again  to 
the  vegetables.  "  I  should  be  very  glad  if  the  foundation  of  the  church,  which 
is  to  be  of  hewn  stone,  were  got  from  the  quarry  at  Schwendi." 

Joseph.  "  Potz  blitz,  Mr.  Bailiff!  Jt  can  never  be !  The  stone  is  bad,  and 
good  for  nothing,  as  a  foundation — " 

Bailiff.  "0  the  stone  is  not  so  bad:  I  have  often  seen  it  used.  It  is  good,  I 
say,  Joseph ;  and  it  would  be  a  great  pleasure  to  me  if  this  quarry  were  to  be 
opened  again." 

Joseph.     "  It  can  not  be  done,  Mr.  Bailiff." 

Bailiff.     "I  will  be  grateful  for  the  service,  Joseph." 

Joseph.     "  The  wall  will  be  down  in  six  years  if  it  be  built  of  this  stone." 

Bailiff.     "I  can't  hear  that.     That  is  a  foolish  story." 

Joseph.  "  By  G ,  it  is  true !  There  are  two  dung-heaps  next  the  wall,  and 

the  stables  drain  past  it.  The  stone  would  rot  away  like  a  fir  plank." 

Bailiff.  "  After  all,  what  is  it  to  thee,  whether  the  wall  be  good  or  not,  in  ten 
years  ?  Dost  thou  fear  that  the  squire  can  not  make  a  new  one  ?  Do  what  I 
say,  and  thou  mayst  expect  a  good  handsome  present." 

Joseph.  "  That  is  all  very  well.  But  what  if  the  squire  should  find  out  that 
the  stone  is  not  good." 

Bailiff.     "  How  should  he  find  it  out  ?     There  is  no  fear  of  that." 

Joseph.  "  He  knows  more  about  things  than  any  body  would  believe.  But 
you  know  him  better  than  I." 

Bailiff.     "He  will  understand  nothing  about  this."  ^ 

Joseph.  "  I  almost  think  so  myself;  for  the  stone  looks  very  well  on  the  out- 
side, and  is  very  good  for  some  purposes." 

Bailiff.  "  Give  me  thy  hand  upon  it,  that  thy  master  shall  use  the  stone  out 
of  this  quarry.  If  thou  wilt,  thou  shalt  have  five  crowns  for  thyself." 

Joseph.     "  It's  a  good  sum,  if  I  had  only  hold  of  it." 

Bailiff.  "  I  am  in  earnest,  by  G !  I  will  give  thee  five  crowns,  if  thou  wilt 

do  it!" 

Joseph.  "Well,  there  you  have  my  word,  Mr.  Bailiff;  and  he  stretched  out 
his  hand  and  pledged  it  him.  It  shall  be  done,  Mr.  Bailiff.  Why  should  I 
trouble  myself  about  the  squire?" 

Bailiff.  "  One  word  more,  Joseph.  I  have  a  bag  full  of  stuff,  from  an  apothe- 
cary's shop,  which  a  gentleman  gave  me.  They  say,  that  when  it  is  mixed  with 


32  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

the  lime,  the  mortar  sticks  to  a  wall  like  iron.  But  these  gentlemen  are  such 
queer  folks,  that  one  can  not  trust  them  about  any  thing.  I  would  rather  not 
try  it  first  on  a  building  of  my  own." 

Joseph.  "  I  can  manage  that  for  you.  I  will  try  it  on  a  corner  of  a  neighbor's 
house." 

Bailiff.  "  It  is  of  no  use  to  try  it  in  such  a  small  way.  Whether  it  succeeds 
or  fails,  one  is  at  no  certainty.  There  is  no  knowing  how  it  might  do  on  a  larger 
scale.  I  should  like  it  to  be  tried  on  the  church,  Joseph !  can  not  it  be  done  ?" 

Joseph.     "  Is  it  necessary  to  put  much  of  it  into  the  lime?" 

Bailiff.     "I  think  about  two  pounds  to  a  barrel." 

Joseph.     "  Then  it  will  be  easy  enough." 

Bailiff.     "  Wilt  thou  do  it  for  me  ?" 

Joseph.     "Yes,  that  I  will." 

Bailiff.     "And  if  it  should  fail,  say  nothing  about  it?" 

Joseph.  "It  can  not  fail,  so  as  to  signify;  and,  of  course,  one  should  say 
nothing  about  it!" 

Bailiff.  "  Thou  wilt  find  the  stuff  at  my  house,  whenever  thou  art  ready  foi 
it ;  and  a  glass  of  wine  with  it."  / 

Joseph.  "  I  will  not  fail,  Mr.  Bailiff;  But  I  must  go  now.  It  has  struck 
one.  Here's  my  thanks  to  you,"  said  he,  taking  up  his  glass. 

Bailiff.  "  Thou  hast  nothing  to  thank  me  for  yet.  Keep  thy  word,  and  thou 
shalt  have  the  five  crowns." 

"I  will  do  my  part,  Mr.  Bailiff,"  said  Joseph,  getting  up  and  putting  by  his 
chair.  "My  best  thanks  to  you" — and  he  drank  off  his  parting  glass. 

Bailiff.  "Well,  if  thou  must  go,  good-bye,  Joseph;  and  remember  our  agree- 
ment." 

Joseph  went  away,  and,  as  he  was  going,  said  to  himself,  "  This  is  a  strange 
fancy  of  his  about  the  stone ;  and  still  stranger  about  the  stuff  in  the  lime.  It's 
a  fine  way  to  try  a  thing,  to  begin  upon  a  church.  But,  at  all  events,  I'll  get 
hold  of  the  money ;  and  I  can  do  as  I  like  afterward." 

"This  has  turned  out  very  well,"  said  the  bailiff  to  himself.  "Better  than  I 
expected,  and  for  half  the  money.  I  should  have  promised  him  ten  crowns,  as 
easily  as  five,  if  he  had  understood  how  to  make  his  bargain.  I  am  well  pleased 
that  the  thing  is  set  a  going.  No,  no !  one  should  never  despair.  0  that  the 
wall  were  but  already  above  the  ground  !  Well,  patience !  on  Monday  they  will 
begin  to  prepare  the  stone.  Poor  mason !  Thy  wife  has  cooked  up  a  pretty 
mess  for  thee." 

CHAPTER  xn. — DOMESTIC  HAPPINESS. 

THE  mason  Leonard,  who  had  gone  up  to  the  hall  early  in  the  morning,  was 
now  come  back  to  his  wife. 

She  had  been  very  busy1  in  getting  her  Saturday's  work  done,  against  her 
husband's  return.  She  had  combed  the  children,  made  them  tidy,  mended  their 
clothes,  cleaned  up  the  little  room,  and,  whilst  she  was  at  work,  had  taught 
them  a  song.  "You  must  sing  it  for  your  dear  father,"  said  she;  and  the  chil- 
dren gladly  learned  any  thing  which  would  please  their  father,  when  he  came 
home.  Whilst  they  were  working,  and  without  any  trouble  or  loss  of  time, 
without  book,  they  sang  it  after  her  till  they  knew  it. 

When  their  father  came  home,  the  mother  welcomed  him ;  and  then  she  and 
the  children  sang: 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 


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Sorrow,  pain,  and  care  controlling, 
O'er  the  suff  'rer's  saddest  hour, 

To  throw  a  radiant  beam  consoling: 

Weary  now  of  care  and  riot, 

Ceaseless  changes,  without  rest; 
Heavenly  quiet  ! 

Come  and  reign  within  my  breast. 

The  tears  came  into  Leonard's  eyes,  as  the  children  and  their  mother  sang  so 
happily  together,  to  welcome  him.  "God  bless  you,  my  darlings!  God  bless 
thee,  my  love!"  said  he  to  them,  with  great  emotion. 

"  My  dear  husband,"  answered  Gertrude,  "it  is  heaven  upon  earth  to  seek  for 
peace,  do  what  is  right,  and  wish  for  little." 

Leon.  "If  I  have  ever  enjoyed  an  hour  of  that  happiness  which  peace  of 
mind  brings,  I  owe  it  to  thee.  Till  my  last  moment  I  will  thank  thee  for  saving 
me  ;  and  these  children  will  be  grateful  to  thee  for  it,  after  thy  death.  0,  my 
dear  children  !  always  do  what  is  right,  and  follow  your  mother,  and  you  will 
prosper." 

"  How  cheery  thou  art  to-day,  Leonard  I" 
"I  have  gone  on  well  with  Arner." 
"Ah!  God  be  thanked  for  it,  my  dear  husband." 
"  He  is  a  man  who  has  not  his  equal.     How  childish  it  was  in  me  to 


Ger. 

Leon. 
Ger. 
Leon. 


be  afraid  of  going  to  him." 

Ger.  "  And  how  wise  we  have  been  at  last,  love.  But  come,  tell  me  how  it 
all  was."  And  as  she  sat  down  by  him,  and  took  out  the  stocking  she  was  knit- 
ting, he  said  to  her:  — 

CHAPTER  xin.  —  A  PROOF  THAT  GERTRUDE  WAS  DEAR  TO  HER  HUSBAND. 

Leonard.  "Ip  thou  sittest  down  in  such  state,  as  thou  dost  to  thy  Bible  on  a 
Sunday  evening,  I  must  prepare  to  tell  thee  a  great  deal." 

Gertrude.     "  Every  thing  !  thou  must  tell  me  every  thing,  love  !" 

Leon.  "Yes,  if  thou  hadst  time  for  it;  but,  Gertrude,  dear,  it  is  Saturday, 
when  thou  art  always  so  busy." 

Ger.    (Smiling.)     "Look  about  thee!" 

Leon.     "Ah!  is  every  thing  done  already?" 

Lise.  "  She  has  been  very  busy,  father  ;  and  Enne  and  I  have  helped  her  to 
clean  up.  Is  not  that  right  ?" 

"It  is,  indeed,  right,"  answered  the  father. 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  35 

"But  now  begin  to  tell  me,"  said  Gertrude. 

Leon.  "  Arner  asked  me  my  father's  name,  and  the  street  where  I  lived,  and 
the  number  of  my  house." 

Ger.     "  0,  thou  art  not  telling  it  right,  Leonard;  I  know  he  did  not  begin  so." 

Leon.     "  And  why  not,  darling ?     What  wouldst  thou  have?" 

Ger.  "  First,  thou  wouldst  make  thy  bow  to  him,  and  he  would  take  notice 
of  thee.  How  did  he  do  that  ?" 

Leon.  "Thou  little  conjuror;  thou  art  right.  I  did  not  begin  at  the  begin- 
ning." 

Ger.     "  I  told  thee  so,  Leonard." 

Leon.  "  "Well,  then,  as  soon  as  he  saw  me,  he  asked  whether  I  was  still  afraid 
of  him.  I  made  a  bow,  as  well  as  I  could,  and  said  '  Forgive  me,  gracious  sir.' 
He  smiled,  and  ordered  a  jug  of  wine  to  be  set  before  me." 

Ger.  "  Come  now,  this  is  quite  a  different  beginning.  "Well,  wert  thou  ready 
enough  to  drink  the  wine?  no  doubt!" 

Leon.  "  No,  wife,  I  was  as  shamefaced  as  a  young  bride,  and  would  not 
touch  it.  But  he  did  not  let  it  pass  so.  'I  know  you  can  tell  what  good  wine 
is,'  said  he,  'help  yourself.'  I  poured  out  a  little,  drank  his  health,  and  tasted 
it — but  he  looked  at  me  so  steadily,  that  the  glass  shook  in  my  hand." 

Ger.  "  What  it  is  to  have  a  tender  conscience,  Leonard !  It  had  got  into  thy 
fingers.  But  thou  wouldst  recover  thyself,  I  suppose." 

Leon.  "Yes,  very  soon.  He  was  very  kind,  and  said,  'It  is  very  natural 
that  a  man  who  works  hard  should  like  a  glass  of  wine.  It  does  him  good  too. 
But  it  is  a  misfortune  when,  instead  of  taking  one  glass  to  refresh  himself,  he  lets 
wine  make  a  fool  of  him,  and  thinks  no  more  of  his  wife  and  children,  nor  of  his 
old  age.  This  is  a  great  misfortune,  Leonard.' 

Wife !  I  felt  it  strike  through  my  heart  as  he  said  this ;  but  I  took  courage, 
and  answered,  '  That  by  unlucky  circumstances  I  had  got  so  entangled,  that  I 
did  not  know  how  in  the  world  to  help  myself;  and  that  I  had  not,  in  all  that 
time,  drunk  one  glass  with  a  merry  heart.'  " 

Ger.     "  And  didst  thou  really  get  through  all  that  ?" 

Leon.     "  If  he  had  not  been  so  very  kind,  I  could  not  have  managed  it." 

Ger.     "  And  what  did  he  say  next  ?" 

Leon.  "  '  That  it  was  a  misfortune  that  poor  folks,  when  they  were  in  trouble, 
generally  got  hold  of  people  they  should  avoid  as  the  plague.'  I  could  not  help 
sighing ;  and  I  think  he  observed  it,  for  he  went  on,  very  kindly :  '  If  one  could 
only  teach  good  people  this,  before  they  learn  it  by  sad  experience ! — a  poor 
man  is  half  saved,  if  he  can  only  keep  out  of  the  claws  of  these  blood-suckers.' 
Soon  afterward  he  went  on  again :  '  It  goes  to  my  heart,  when  I  think  how  often 
the  poor  will  go  on  suffering  the  greatest  misery,  and  have  not  the  sense  and 
courage  to  tell  their  situation  to  those  who  would  gladly  help  them,  if  they  only 
knew  how  things  were.  It  is  really  unpardonable  to  think  how  you  have  let 
yourself  be  ensnared,  day  after  day,  by  the  bailiff,  and  brought  your  wife  and 
children  into  such  trouble  and  danger,  without  once  coming  to  me,  to  ask  for 
help  and  counsel.  Only  consider,  mason,  what  would  have  been  the  end  of  all 
this,  if  your  wife  had  had  no  more  sense  and  courage  than  you.'  " 

Ger.  "And  did  he  say  all  this  before  he  asked  after  the  number  of  thy 
house  ?" 

Leon.     "Thou  hearest  how  it  was." 

Ger.     "Thou  didst  not  mean  to  tell  me  all  this  in  a  hurry,  didst  thou?" 


36  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

Leon.  "  Why,  indeed,  I  think  it  would  have  been  more  prudent  not.  Thou 
•wilt  grow  too  proud  for  me ;  because  thou  hast  had  so  much  courage." 

Ger.  "Thinkest  thou  so,  my  good  master?  Yes,  indeed,  I  will  plume  my- 
self upon  this  as  long  as  I  live ;  and  as  long  as  it  does  us  any  good.  But  what 
said  Arner  besides?" 

Leon.  "  He  began  to  examine  me  about  the  building.  It  was  well  I  had  not 
forgotten  every  thing.  I  had  to  reckon  it  all  up  by  measurement,  and  set  down 
every  item  for  carrying  lime,  and  sand,  and  stone." 

Ger.     "Didst  thou  make  no  mistake  at  all  in  the  reckoning?" 

Leon.     "  No ;  not  this  time,  love." 

Ger.     "  God  be  thanked  for  it." 

Leon.     "Yes,  indeed,  God  be  thanked." 

Ger.     "Is  every  thing  ready  now?" 

Leon.  "Yes;  all  will  very  soon  be  ready.  Guess  now  much  he  has  given 
me  in  hand,  said  he,  (shaking  the  money  in  a  bag.)  It  is  long  since  I  heard  the 
sound  of  so  much  silver."  Gertrude  sighed. 

Leon.  " Do  not  sigh  now,  my  dear  wife,  we  will  be  prudent  and  saving;  and 
we  shall  certainly  never  come  into  the  same  distress  again." 

Ger.     "  God  in  heaven  has  helped  us." 

Leon.  "Yes;  and  many  more  in  the  village  besides  us.  Only  think;  Arner 
has  chosen  out  ten  fathers  of  families,  who  were  poor  and  in  want,  as  day- 
laborers  at  this  building;  and  he  gives  each  of  them  twenty-five  kreutzers  a 
day.  Thou  shouldst  have  seen,  Gertrude,  how  carefully  he  chose  them  all  out." 

Ger.     "0,  tell  me  how  it  all  was?" 

Leon.     "Yes;  if  I  could  remember  I  would." 

Ger.     "Try  what  thou  canst  do,  Leonard." 

Leon.  "Well  then:  he  inquired  after  all  the  fathers  of  families  who  were 
poor;  how  many  children  they  had;  how  old  they  were;  and  what  property  or 
help  they  had.  Then  he  asked  which  were  the  worst  off,  and  had  the  most 
young  children ;  and  said  to  me,  twice  over,  '  If  you  know  of  any  body  else, 
who  is  in  trouble,  as  you  were,  tell  me.'  I  thought  of  Hubel  Rudi,  and  he  has 
now  work  for  a  year  certain." 

Ger.  "  Thou  didst  very  right  not  to  let  him  suffer  for  having  taken  thy 
potatoes." 

Leon.  "I  can  never  bear  malice  against  any  poor  man,  Gertrude;  and  they 
are  terribly  ill  off.  I  met  Rudi,  near  the  potato  hole  two  days  ago,  and  pre- 
tended not  to  see  him.  It  went  to  my  heart,  he  looked  such  a  picture  of  want 
and  misery;  and,  thank  God,  we  have  always  yet  had  something  to  eat." 

Ger.  "Thou  art  quite  right,  my  dear  husband!  but  still  it  can  not  be  a  help 
to  any  body  to  steal ;  and  the  poor  who  do  so,  are  only  doubly  wretched." 

Leon.  "  True ;  but  when  people  are  very  hungry,  and  see  food  before  them, 
and  know  how  much  of  it  must  go  to  waste  in  the  hole,  and  that  even  the  cattle 
have  enough  to  eat; — 0  Gertrude!  it  is  hard  work  to  let  it  lie  there  and  not 
touch  it." 

Ger.  "It  is  very  hard!  but  the  poor  man  must  learn  to  do  it,  or  he  will  be 
wretched  indeed." 

Leon.     "Oh,  who  could  punish  him  for  it?  who  could  ask  it  of  him  again?" 

Ger.  "God! — He  who  requires  this  from  the  poor  man,  gives  him  strength 
to  do  it,  and  leads  him  on,  through  trouble,  and  want,  and  the  many  sufferings 
of  his  situation,  to  that  self-denial  which  is  required  from  him.  Believe  me, 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  3^ 

Leonard,  God  helps  the  poor  man  in  secret,  and  gives  him  strength  and  under- 
standing to  bear,  and  to  suffer,  and  to  endure,  what  appears  almost  incredible. 
And,  when  it  is  once  gone  through,  with  an  approving  conscience,  Leonard,  then 
it  brings  happiness,  indeed ;  greater  than  any  one  can  know,  who  has  had  no 
occasion  to  practice  self-denial." 

Leon.  "I  know  it,  Gertrude.  I  know  it  by  what  thou  hast  done.  I  am  not 
blind.  I  have  often  seen  how,  in  the  greatest  need,  thou  couldst  still  trust  in 
God  and  be  content.  But  few  are  like  thee  in  trouble,  and  there  are  many  who, 
like  me,  are  very  weak  creatures,  when  want  and  distress  are  heavy  upon  them ; 
and  therefore  I  always  think,  that  more  should  be  done,  to  provide  all  the  poor 
with  work  and  food.  I  think  too,  that  they  would  then  all  be  better  than  they 
now  are,  in  the  distraction  of  their  poverty,  and  of  their  many  troubles." 

Ger.  "0  my  love!  that  is  not  the  state  of  the  case.  If  nothing  were  want- 
ing but  work  and  gain,  to  make  the  poor  happy,  they  would  be  easily  helped. 
But  it  is  not  so.  Both  rich  and  poor  must  have  their  hearts  well  regulated 
before  they  can  be  happy.  And  more  arrive  at  this  end,  by  means  of  trouble 
and  care,  than  through  rest  and  joy.  If  it  were  not  so,  God  would  willingly  let 
us  all  have  joys  in  abundance.  But  since  men  can  only  know  how  to  bear 
prosperity,  and  rest,  and  joy,  when  their  hearts  have  been  trained  to  much  self- 
denial,  and  are  become  steadfast,  firm,  patient,  and  wise,  it  is  clearly  necessary 
that  there  should  be  much  sorrow  and  distress  in  the  world ;  for  without  it,  few 
men  can  bring  their  hearts  into  due  regulation,  and  to  inward  peace ;  and,  if 
these  be  wanting,  a  man  may  have  work  or  no  work,  he  may  have  abundance  or 
not,  it  is  all  one.  The  rich  old  Meyer  has  all  he  wants,  and  spends  every  day  in 
the  tavern :  but  for  all  that,  he  is  no  happier  than  a  poor  man  who  has  nothing, 
works  hard  all  day,  and  can  only  now  and  then  have  a  glass  of  wine  in  a  corner." 
Leonard  sighed.  Gertrude  was  silent  for  a  short  time.  Then  she  continued : 
"  Hast  thou  seen  whether  the  men  are  at  work  ?  I  should  tell  thee,  that  Joseph 
has  again  slipped  away  to  the  tavern." 

Leon.  "  That  looks  ill !  I  am  sure  the  bailiff  must  have  sent  for  him.  He 
goes  on  very  strangely.  Before  I  came  home,  I  went  to  them  at  their  work, 
when  he  was  just  come  back  from  the  tavern ;  and  what  he  said  made  me  un- 
eas}r.  It  is  not  his  own  thought  then." 

Ger.     "What  was  it?" 

Leon.  "  He  said  the  stone  out  of  the  quarry  at  Schwendi  was  excellent  for 
the  church  wall ;  and  when  I  told  him  the  great  flint  stones,  which  lay  near  in 
heaps,  were  much  better,  he  said,  '  I  should  always  be  a  fool,  and  not  know  my 
own  business.  The  wall  would  be  much  better  and  handsomer  of  Schwendi 
stone.'  I  thought,  at  the  time,  he  said  it  with  a  good  intention.  But  he  began 
so  suddenty  about  the  stone,  that  it  seemed  very  strange ;  and  if  he  has  been 
with  the  bailiff", — there  is  certainly  something  more  in  it.  The  Schwendi  stone 
is  soft  and  sandy,  and  not  fit  for  such  work.  If  it  should  be  a  snare  laid  for 
me!" — 

Ger.     "  Joseph  is  not  a  man  to  depend  upon,  be  careful  about  him." 

Leon.  "  They  will  not  take  me  in,  this  time.  The  squire  will  have  no  sand- 
stone in  the  wall." 

Ger.     "Why  not?" 

Leon.  "  He  says  that  sandstone  where  there  are  dung  heaps  and  stable 
drainage  will  decay,  and  be  eaten  up  with  saltpetre." 

Ger.     "  Is  that  true  ?" 


38  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

Leon.  "Yes.  When  I  was  from  home  once,  I  worked  at  a  building, 
where  they  were  obliged  to  take  away  a  very  good  foundation  of  this  kind  of 
stone." 

Ger.     "To  think  of  his  understanding  it  so  well  I" 

Leon.  "  I  was  surprised  myself;  but  he  understands  a  great  many  things. 
He  asked  me  where  the  best  sand  was.  I  said,  near  the  lower  mill.  '  That  is 
very  far  to  fetch  it,  and  up  the  hill  too,'  answered  he:  'We  must  be  careful  of 
men  and  cattle.  Do  you  not  know  of  any  nearer  ?'  I  said,  there  certainly  was 
-very  good  sand  in  a  meadow  near  the  church  ;  but  it  was  private  property,  and 
we  should  have  to  pay  for  the  hole ;  and  could  go  no  way  but  through  the 
meadow,  where  we  must  make  a  road.  '  There  is  no  harm  in  that,'  said  he.  '  It 
is  better  than  fetching  sand  from  the  mill.'  I  must  tell  thee  one  thing  more: 
As  he  was  speaking  of  the  sand,  a  servant  came  from  the  squire  of  Oberhofen, 
and  I  thought  then,  that  I  ought  to  say  I  would  not  detain  him,  but  come  another 
time.  He  laughed,  and  said :  '  No,  mason,  I  like  to  finish  what  I  am  about ;  and 
when  I  have  done,  I  see  what  any  body  else  wants  from  me.  But  it  is  like  you, 
to  be  taking  leave.  It  is  a  part  of  your  old  ways,  which  you  must  give  up — to 
be  so  ready  at  every  opportunity  to  leave  your  business  and  work,' 

"  I  looked  like  a  fool,  wife ;  and  heartily  wished  I  had  kept  my  tongue  quiet, 
and  not  said  a  word  about  coming  another  time.'  " 

"It  was  partly  thy  own  fault,  indeed!"  said  Gertrude;  and  at  that  moment 
somebody  called  out  at  the  door :  "  Holla !  is  nobody  at  home  ?" 

CHAPTER  xiv. — MEAN  SELFISHNESS. 

THE  mason  opened  the  door,  and  Margaret,  the  sexton's  daughter-in-law,  and 
the  bailiff's  niece,  came  into  the  room.  As  soon  as  she  had  very  slightly  saluted 
the  mason  and  his  wife,  she  said  to  him :  "  You  will  not  be  for  mending  our  old 
oven,  now,  I  suppose,  Leonard!" 

Leonard.     "Why  not,  neighbor?     Does  it  want  any  thing  done  to  it?" 

Margaret.  "  Not  just  now.  I  only  ask  in  time,  that  I  may  know  what  to 
trust  to." 

Leon.  "You  are  very  careful  Margaret;  but  there  was  no  great  need  to  be 
afraid." 

Marg.     "Ay!  but  times  change,  and  people  with  them." 

Leon.  "  Very  true.  But  one  may  always  find  plenty  of  people  to  mend  an 
oven." 

Marg.     "That  is  some  comfort,  at  all  events." 

Gertrude,  who  had  been  silent  all  this  time,  took  up  the  cleaver  to  cut  some 
hard  rye-bread  for  supper. 

"That  is  but  black  bread,"  said  Margaret;  "  but  you  will  soon  have  better,  as 
your  husband  is  become  builder  to  the  squire." 

"You  talk  foolishly,  Margaret.  I  shall  be  thankful  if  I  have  enough  of  bread 
like  this,  all  my  life ;"  said  Gertrude. 

Marg.  "  But  white  bread  is  better ;  and  you  will  find  it  so.  You  will  now 
be  a  bailiff's  wife,  and  your  husband,  Mr.  Bailiff;  but  it  will  be  a  bad  thing  for 
us." 

Leon.  "What  do  you  mean  by  your  sneers?  I  like  people  to  speak  out;  if 
they  have  any  thing  on  their  minds,  and  dare  say  it." 

Marg.  "Ay,  mason!  and  I  dare  say  it,  if  it  comes  to  that.  My  husband  is 
the  sexton's  son,  and  since  the  church  was  first  built,  it  was  never  heard  of  be- 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  39 

fore,  but  that  his  people  had  the  preference,  when  there  was  any  thing  to  be 
done  at  it!" 

Leon.     "Well I  what  more?" 

Marg.  "  Why,  now,  at  this  very  moment,  the  bailiff  has  a  list  in  his  house, 
in  which  more  than  a  dozen  blockheads,  out  of  the  village,  are  marked  out  to 
work  at  the  building  of  the  church,  and  there  is  not  a  word  said  of  the  sexton's 
people." 

Leon.     "  But,  neighbor !  what  have  I  to  do  with  it?     Did  I  write  out  the  list?" 

Marg.     "No,  you  did  not  write  it  out,  but  I  suppose  you  dictated  it." 

Leon.  "It  would  be  a  fine  thing  for  me,  indeed,  to  dictate  his  own  list  to  the 
squire." 

Marg.  "0!  we  all  know  that  you  go  every  day  to  the  hall;  and  you  have 
certainly  been  there  again  to-day;  and  if  you  had  only  told  him  how  it  was  be- 
fore, things  would  have  gone  on  in  the  old  way. 

Leon.  "You  are  mistaken,  Margaret,  if  you  think  so.  Arner  is  not  the  man 
to  let  things  go  on  hi  the  old  way,  if  he  can  mend  them  by  a  new  one." 

Marg.     "  We  see  how  it  is !" 

Leon.     "And  he  means  to  help  the  poor  and  needy,  by  giving  them  work." 

Marg.     "Yes!  he  means  to  help  all  the  blockheads  and  beggarly  rabble." 

Leon.  "All  poor  folks  are  not  rabble,  Margaret;  and  it  is  not  right  to  talk 
so.  No  one  knows  what  may  happen  to  himself  before  he  dies." 

Marg.  "No;  and  therefore  everybody  should  look  after  his  own  bread;  and 
it  is  no  wonder  we  are  troubled  to  be  so  forgotten." 

Leon.  "Ah,  Margaret !  it  is  a  very  different  thing.  You  have  good  property, 
and  live  with  your  father,  who  has  the  best  situation  in  the  village ;  and  you 
have  no  need  to  work  for  your  bread  like  us  poor  folks." 

Marg.  "  You  may  say  what  you  will :  every  one  is  vexed  when  he  thinks  a 
thing  belongs  to  him,  and  another  dog  comes  and  snatches  it  out  of  his  mouth." 

Leon.  "  Don't  talk  of  dogs,  Margaret,  when  you  are  speaking  of  men,  or  you 
may  find  one  that  will  bite  you.  But  if  you  think  the  situation  belongs  to  you, 
you  are  young  and  strong,  and  a  rare  talker;  you  can  manage  your  own  affair, 
and  take  it  to  the  place  where  you  may  be  helped  to  your  right." 

Marg.     "Many  thanks,  Mr.  Mason,  for  your  fine  piece  of  advice." 

Leon.     "  I  can  give  you  none  better." 

Marg.  "  One  may  find  an  opportunity  to  remember  the  service.  Farewell, 
Leonard." 

Leon.     "  Farewell,  Margaret.     It  is  all  I  can  do  for  you." 

Margaret  went  away,  and  Leonard  to  his  men." 

CHAPTER  xv. — THE  WISE  GOOSE  LAYS  AN  EGG;  OR,  A  BLUNDER  WHICH  COSTS 

A  GLASS  OP  WINE. 

LEONARD  had  no  sooner  left  the  hall,  than  Arner  sent  the  list  of  day-laborers 
which  he  had  written  out,  by  Flink,  his  huntsman,  to  the  bailiff,  with  orders  to 
give  them  all  notice. 

The  huntsman  brought  the  list  to  the  bailiff  before  noon;  but  formerly,  nil 
the  writings  which  came  from  the  hall,  were  directed  "  To  the  honorable  and 
discreet,  my  trusty  and  well-beloved  Bailiff  Hummel  in  Bonnal,"  and  on  this, 
there  was  only,  "  To  the  Bailiff  Hummel  in  Bonnal." 

"  What  is  that  damned  Spritzer,  the  secretary,  about,  that  he  does  not  give 
me  my  right  title  ?"  said  the  bailiff  to  Flink,  as  he  took  the  letter. 


40  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

But  the  huntsman  answered :  "  Take  care,  bailiff,  what  you  say.  The  squire 
directed  the  letter  himself." 

Bailiff.  "  That's  not  true.  I  know  the  writing  of  that  powdered  beggar  the 
secretary!" 

Flink  shook  his  head,  and  said:  "You  are  a  bold  man.  I  saw  the 
squire  write  it,  with  my  own  eyes,  and  I  stood  by  him  in  the  room  whilst  he 
did  it." 

Bailiff.  "  Then  I  have  made  a  damned  blunder,  Flink !  The  words  escaped 
me.  Forget  them,  and  come  into  the  house,  and  drink  a  glass  of  wine  with  me." 

"Take  care  the  next  time,  bailiff!  I  don't  like  to  make  mischief,  and  will 
pass  it  over  for  once,"  said  Flink,  going  with  the  bailiff  into  the  house.  He  set 
his  short  gun  in  a  corner,  drank  one  glass,  and  then  went  away. 

The  bailiff  opened  the  paper,  read  it,  and  said:  "These  are  all  mere  block- 
heads and  beggars,  from  first  to  last.  Donner !  what  a  business  this  is !  Not 
one  of  my  own  people,  except  Michael.  I  am  not  even  to  recommend  a  day- 
laborer  to  him !  And  here  I  am  to  give  them  all  notice  to-day.  It  will  be  hard 
work  for  me — but  I  will  do  it.  It  is  not  evening  all  day  long.  Truly,  I  will 
tell  them  of  it,  and  advise  them  all  to  go  on  Monday  to  the  hall,  to  return  thanks 
to  the  squire.  He  does  not  know  one  of  these  fellows.  It  must  be  the  mason 
who  has  recommended  them  to  him.  When  they  arrive  at  the  hall,  on  Monday, 
all  in  tatters,  some  without  shoes,  others  without  hats,  and  stand  before  the 
squire,  I  shall  wonder  if  he  does  not  say  something  I  can  turn  to  use."  Thus 
he  laid  his  plans,  dressed  himself,  and  took  up  the  list  to  see  how  they  lay  near 
each  other,  that  he  might  not  go  roundabout. 

Hubel  Rudi  was  not  the  next  to  him;  but  ever  since  he  had  gained  the 
meadow  from  his  father  by  a  lawsuit,  he  kept,  as  much  as  he  could,  away  from 
his  house,  on  account  of  certain  uneasy  thoughts  which  occurred  to  him,  when 
he  saw  these  poor  people.  "I  will  go  first  to  these  folks,"  said  he,  and  went  up 
to  their  window. 

CHAPTER  xvi. — THE  DEATH-BED. 

HUBEL  EUDI  was  sitting  with  his  four  children.  It  was  only  three  months 
sinoe  his  wife's  death,  and  now  his  mother  lay  dying  upon  a  bed  of  straw,  and 
said  to  Rudi:  "I  wish  thou  wouldst  collect  some  leaves  this  afternoon,  to  put 
into  my  coverlid;  I  am  very  cold." 

Rudi.     "  Oh,  mother!  as  soon  as  ever  the  fire  in  the  oven  is  put  out,  I  will  go." 

Mother.  "Hast  thou  any  wood  left,  Rudi?  I  think  not,  for  thou  canst  not 
leave  me  and  the  children,  to  go  into  the  forest — alas,  Rudi,  I  am  a  burthen  to 
thee!" 

Rudi.  "  My  dear  mother,  do  not  say  that  thou  art  a  burthen  to  me !  Oh,  if 
I  could  only  give  thee  what  thou  hast  need  of!  Thou  art  hungry  and  thirsty, 
and  makest no  complaint.  It  goes  to  my  heart,  mother!" 

Mother.  "Do  not  make  thyself  unhappy,  Rudi.  Thanks  be  to  God,  my  pain 
is  not  severe — he  will  soon  relieve  it,  and  my  blessing  will  repay  thee  what  thou 
hast  done  for  me." 

•  Rudi.  "  0  mother,  my  poverty  was  never  such  a  trouble  to  me  as  now,  when 
I  can  give  thee  nothing,  and  do  nothing  for  thee.  Alas !  thou  sufferest  from 
sickness  and  misery,  and  sharest  my  wants." 

Mother.  "  When  we  draw  near  our  end,  we  want  little  on  earth,  and  what  we 
do  want,  our  heavenly  Father  supplies.  I  thank  him,  Rudi ;  for  he  strengthens 
me  in  my  approaching  hour." 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  41 

Rudi.  (Weeping.)  "Dost  thou  think  then,  mother,  that  thou  wilt  not 
recover  ?  " 

Mother.  "  Never,  Rudi  I  it  is  most  certain." 

Rudi.     "  Gracious  heaven  I  " 

Mother.     "  Take  comfort,  Rudi !  I  go  into  a  better  life." 

Rudi.     (Sobbing.)     Alas,  alas!" 

Mother.  "Do  not  grieve,  Rudi!  Thou  hast  been  the  joy  of  my  youth,  and 
the  comfort  of  my  old  age.  And  now  I  thank  God  that  thy  hand  will  soon  close 
my  eyes !  Then  shall  I  go  to  God,  and  I  will  pray  for  thee,  and  all  will  be  well 
with  thee  for  ever.  Think  of  me,  Rudi.  All  the  sufferings  and  all  the  troubles 
of  this  life,  if  they  are  well  borne,  end  in  good,  All  I  have  undergone  comforts 
me,  and  is  as  great  a  blessing  to  me,  as  any  of  the  pleasures  and  joys  of  life. 
I  thank  God  for  the  gladsome  days  of  my  childhood ;  but  when  the  fruit  of  life 
ripens  for  harvest,  and  when  the  tree  drops  its  leaves  before  its  winter  sleep, — 
then  are  the  sorrows  of  life  hallowed,  and  its  joys  but  as  a  dream.  Think  of 
me,  Rudi ! — all  thy  sufferings  will  end  in  good." 

Rudi.     "  Oh,  mother !  dear  mother !  " 

Mother.     "  Yet,  one  thing  more,  Rudi." 

Rudi.     "What,  mother?" 

Mother.  "  Ever  since  yesterday  it  has  lain  like  a  stone  on  my  heart.  I  must 
tell  thee  of  it,  Rudi." 

Rudi,     "  What  is  it,  dear  mother  ?  " 

Mother.  "  Yesterday  I  saw  our  little  Rudeli  creep  behind  my  bed,  and  eat 
roasted  potatoes  out  of  his  bag.  He  gave  some  to  his  sisters,  and  they  also  ate 
these  potatoes,  which  must  have  been  stolen.  Rudi,  they  could  not  be  ours ! — 
or  the  boy  would  have  thrown  them  upon  the  table,  and  called  his  sisters  loud- 
ly ;  and  he  would  have  brought  me  some  of  them,  as  he  had  done  a  thousand 
times  before.  Oh,  how  it  used  to  gladden  my  heart,  when  he  flew  towards  me 
with  something  in  his  hand,  and  said,  so  fondly  to  me :  "  Eat,  eat,  grandmother?  " 
Rudi,  if  this  darling  child  should  become  a  thief  1  0,  this  thought  has  been  a 
sad  weight  upon  me  since  yesterday.  Where  is  he  ?  bring  him  to  me — I  will 
speak  to  him." 

Rudi  ran  quickly,  sought  the  boy  and  brought  him  to  his  mother's  bed-side. 

The  mother,  with  great  difficulty,  raised  herself  up,  for  the  last  time,  turned 
toward  the  boy,  took  both  his  hands  in  hers,  and  bent  forward  her  weak,  dying 
head. 

The  little  fellow  wept  aloud.  "Grandmother!  what  is  it  you  wish?  you  are 
not  dying  yet !  0,  do  not  die  yet,  grandmother." 

She  answered  in  broken  words:  "Yes,  Rudeli,  I  must  certainly  die  very 
soon." 

"  0  my  God!  do  not  die,  grandmother,"  said  the  boy. 

The  sick  woman  lost  her  breath,  and  was  obliged  to  lie  down  again. 

The  boy  and  his  father  burst  into  tears — but  she  soon  recovered  herself,  and 
said: 

"  I  am  better  again,  now  that  I  lie  down." 

And  Rudeli  said :   "  And  you  will  not  then  die  now,  grandmother  ?  " 

Mother.  "  Say  not  so,  my  darling !  I  die  willingly ;  and  shall  then  go  to  a 
kind  father !  If  thou  couldst  know,  Rudeli,  how  happy  I  am,  that  I  shall  soon 
go  to  Him,  thou  wouldst  not  be  so  sorrowful." 

Rudeli.     "I  will  die  with  you,  grandmother,  if  you  must  die!  " 


42  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

Mother.  "No,  Rudeli,  thou  must  not  die  with  me.  If  it  be  the  will  of  God, 
thou  must  live  a  long  time  yet,  and  grow  up  to  be  a  good  man ;  and  when  thy 
father  is  old  and  weak,  thou  must  be  his  help  and  comfort.  Tell  me,  Rudeli, 
wilt  thou  follow  after  him,  and  be  a  good  man,  and  do  what  is  right  ?  Promise 
me  thou  wilt,  my  love!" 

Rudeli.     "  Yes,  grandmother,  I  will  do  what  is  right,  and  follow  after  him." 

Mother.  "  Rudeli,  our  Father  in  heaven,  to  whom  I  am  going,  sees  and  hears 
all  that  we  do,  and  what  we  promise.  Tell  me,  Rudeli,  dost  thou  know  this, 
and  dost  thou  believe  it  ?" 

Rudeli.     "Yes,  grandmother!  •  I  know  it,  and  I  believe  it." 

Mother.  "  But  why  didst  thou  then  eat  stolen  potatoes,  yesterday,  behind  my 
bed?" 

Rudeli.     "Forgive  me  this  once,  grandmother;  I  will  never  do  so  again.    For- 
give me !     I  will  certainly  never  do  so  again,  grandmother." 
.     Mother.     "  Didst  thou  steal  them  ?" 

Rudeli.     (Sobbing.)     "  Yes,  grandmother,  I  did  1" 

Mother.     "  From  whom  didst  thou  steal  them?" 

Rudeli.     "From  the  ma — ma — son." 

Mother.     "  Thou  must  go  to  him  Rudeli,  and  beg  him  to  forgive  thee." 

Rudeli.     "0,  grandmother,  for  God's  sake!  I  dare  not." 

Mother.  "Thou  must  Rudeli!  that  thou  mayst  not  do  so  another  time.  Thou 
must  go,  without  another  word !  and  for  heaven's  sake,  my  dear  child,  if  thou 
art  ever  so  hungry,  never  take  any  thing  again.  God  will  not  forsake  any  of 
us.  He  provides  for  all.  0,  Rudeli,  if  thou  art  ever  so  hungry,  if  thou  hast  no 
food,  and  knowest  of  none,  yet  trust  in  God,  and  do  not  steal  anymore." 

Rudeli.  "  Grandmother,  I  will  never  steal  again.  If  I  am  hungry,  I  will 
never  steal  again." 

Mother.  "  Then  may  the  God,  in  whom  I  trust,  bless  thee,  and  keep  thee,  my 
darling !"  She  pressed  him  to  her  heart,  wept,  and  said :  "  Thou  must  now  go  to 
the  mason,  and  beg  his  pardon;  and,  Rudi,  do  thou  also  go  with  him,  and  tell 
the  mason,  that  I  too  beg  his  pardon;  and  that  I  am  very  sorry  I  can  not  give 
him  back  the  potatoes.  Tell  him  I  will  pray  for  the  blessing  of  God  upon  what 
he  has  left,  I  am  so  grieved  1  They  have  so  much  need  of  all  they  have — and 
if  his  wife  did  not  work  so  hard,  day  and  night,  they  could  not  possibly  maintain 
their  own  large  family.  Rudi,  thou  wilt  willingly  work  a  couple  of  days  for 
him,  to  make  it  up." 

Rudi.     "I  will,  indeed,  dear  mother,  with  all  my  heart." 

As  he  spoke,  the  bailiff  tapped  at  the  window." 

CHAPTER  xvn. — THE  SICK  WOMAN'S  BEHAVIOR. 

AND  the  sick  woman  knew  him  by  his  cough,  and  said:  "  0  Rudi!  here  is  the 
bailiff! — I  am  afraid  the  bread  and  butter  thou  art  preparing  for  me  are  not  paid 
for." 

Rudi.  "  For  heaven's  sake,  do  not  distress  thyself,  mother.  It  is  of  no  conse- 
quence. I  will  work  for  him ;  and,  at  harvest  time,  reap  for  him,  as  much  as  he 
likes." 

"Alas!  he  will  not  wait,"  said  the  mother;  and  Rudi  went  out  of  the  room 
to  the  bailiff. 

The  sick* woman  sighed  to  herself,  and  said:  "Since  this  affair  of  ours,  God 
forgive  him,  the  poor  blinded  creature,  I  never  see  him  without  a  pang-.  And  to 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  43 

think  that,  at  my  last  hour,  he  must  come  and  talk  under  my  window.  It  is  the 
will  of  God  that  I  should  forgive  him,  entirely  and  immediately,  and  overcome 
my  last  resentment,  and  pray  for  his  soul — and  I  will  do  so." 

"0  God,  thou  hast  overruled  the  whole  affair.  Forgive  him,  Father  in 
heaven,  forgive  him."  She  heard  the  bailiff  talking  loudly,  and  started.  "  Alas  1 
he  is  angry!  0  my  poor  Rudi!  it  is  owing  to  me  that  thou  art  in  his  power!" 
Again  she  heard  his  voice,  and  fainted  away. 

Eudeli  sprang  out  of  the  room  to  his  father,  and  called  him :  "  Father,  come, 
oome !  I  think  my  grandmother  is  dead." 

And  Rudi  exclaimed:  "Gracious  heaven!    Bailiff,  I  must  go  into  the  room." 

"Much  need  of  that,"  said  the  bailiff.  "It  will  be  a  great  loss,  truly,  if  the 
old  witch  should  be  gone  at  last." 

Rudi  heard  not  what  he  said,  but  rushed  into  the  room. 

The  sick  woman  soon  recovered  herself,  and  as  she  opened  her  eyes,  she  said : 
"Is  he  angry,  Rudi?  I  am  sure  he  will  not  wait." 

Rudi.  "  No,  indeed,  mother!  It  is  some  very  good  news.  But  art  thou  quite 
recovered  ?" 

"Yes!"  said  the  mother,  and  looked  at  him  very  earnestly  and  mournfully, — 
"What  good  news  can  this  man  bring?  what  dost  thou  say?  Dost  thou  wish 
to  comfort  me,  and  to  suffer  alone  ?  He  has  threatened  thee." 

Rudi.  "  I  do  assure  thee  it  is  not  so,  mother.  He  has  told  me  that  I  am  to 
be  a  day-laborer,  at  the  building  of  the  church,  and  the  squire  pays  every  man 
twenty-five  kreutzers  a  day,  wages." 

Mother.     "  Lord  God !  Can  this  be  true  ?" 

Rudi.  "  Yes,  mother,  it  is  indeed  1  And  there  is  work  for  more  than  a  whole 
year." 

Mother.  "  Now  I  shall  die  more  easy,  Rudi.  Great  God,  thou  art  merciful ! 
0,  be  so  to  the  end !  And,  Rudi,  be  thou  sure,  that  the  greater  our  want,  the 
nearer  is  his  help." 

She  was  silent  for  a  while,  and  then  said  again,  "I  believe  it  is  all  over  with 
me !  my  breath  grows  shorter  every  moment — we  must  part,  Rudi — I  will  take 
leave  of  thee." 

Rudi  trembled,  shuddered,  took  off  his  cap,  and  knelt  down  by  his  mother's 
bed,  folded  his  hands,  raised  his  eyes  to  heaven,  and  tears  and  sobs  choked  his 
speech. 

Then  said  his  mother:  "Take  courage,  Rudi!  I  trust  in  an  eternal  life, 
where  we  shall  meet  again.  Death  is  a  moment  which  passes  away — I  do  not 
fear  it — I  know  that  my  Redeemer  liveth,  and  that  he  shall  stand  at  the  latter 
day  upon  the  earth :  and  though,  after  my  skin,  worms  destroy  this  body,  yet  in 
my  flesh  shall  I  see  God:  whom  I  shall  see  for  myself,  and  mine  eyes  shall  be- 
hold, and  not  another." 

Rudi  had  now  recovered  himself,  and  said:  "Give  me  thy  blessing,  mother! 
If  it  be  the  will  of  God,  may  I  soon  follow  thee  to  eternal  life." 

Then  said  his  mother :  "  Hear  me,  heavenly  Father,  and  grant  thy  blessing 
upon  my  child  I  Upon  this,  the  only  child  whom  thou  hast  given  me,  and  who 
is  so  dear  to  me !  Rudi,  may  my  God  and  Saviour  be  with  thee,  and  as  he 
showed  mercy  unto  Isaac  and  Jacob,  for  their  father  Abraham's  sake,  so  may  he 
show  mercy  unto  thee,  abundantly,  for  the  sake  of  my  blessing ;  tlmt^thy  heart 
may  rejoice  and  be  glad,  and  praise  his  name." 

"Hear  me  now,  Rudi!  and  do  as  I  say.     Teach  thy  children  regularity  and 


44  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

industry,  that  they  may  never  come  to  want,  nor  grow  disorderly  and  idle. 
Teach  them  to  hope  and  trust  in  Almighty  God,  and  to  be  kind  to  each  other  in 
joy  and  in  sorrow.  So  will  it  be  well  with  them,  even  in  poverty. 

"  Forgive  the  bailiff;  and,  when  I  am  dead  and  buried,  go  to  him,  and  tell 
him  that  I  die  in  charity  with  him,  and  if  God  hears  my  prayer,  he  will  yet  do 
well  and  come  to  the  knowledge  of  himself,  before  he  must  depart  hence." 

After  a  pause,  the  mother  said  again:  "Rudi,  give  me  my  two  bibles,  my 
prayer-books,  and  a  paper,  which  is  lying  under  my  handkerchief,  in  a  little 
box." 

And  Rudi  rose  from  his  knees  and  brought  them  all  to  his  mother. 

Then  she  said:  "Now  bring  all  the  children  to  me."  He  brought  them  from 
the  table,  where  they  were  sitting  weeping,  and  they  all  knelt  down  by  her  bed- 
side. 

Then  she  said  to  them:  "Weep  not  so,  my  children!  your  heavenly  Father 
will  support  and  bless  you — you  are  very  dear  to  me,  and  I  grieve  to  leave  you 
so  poor,  and  without  a  mother.  But  hope  in  God,  and  trust  in  him,  whatever 
ma}'-  befall  you ;  so  will  you  always  find  in  him,  more  than  a  father's  help,  or  a 
mother's  kindness.  Remember  me,  my  darlings!  I  have  nothing  to  leave  you, 
but  I  have  loved  you  tenderly,  and  I  know  that  you  love  me  also.  My  bibles 
and  my  prayer-books  are  almost  all  I  have  left,  but  do  not  think  them  trifles, 
my  children ! — They  have  comforted  and  cheered  me,  a  thousand  times,  in  my 
troubles.  Let  the  word  of  God  be  also  your  comfort  and  your  joy;  and  love 
one  another ;  and  help  and  advise  one  another,  as  long  as  you  live ;  and  be 
honest,  true,  kind,  and  obliging,  to  all  men — so  will  you  pass  well  through  life. 

"  And  thou,  Rudi,  keep  the  great  bible  for  Betheli,  and  the  smaller  one  for 
Rudeli ;  and  the  two  prayer-books  for  the  little  ones,  for  a  remembrance  of  me. 

"I  have  nothing  for  thee,  Rudi!  but  thou  needest  no  remembrance  of  me — 
thou  wilt  not  forget  me." 

Then  she  called  Rudeli  again  to  her :  "  Give  me  thy  hand,  my  dear  child !  Be 
sure  thou  never  stealest  again." 

"  No  indeed,  grandmother,  believe  me !  I  will  never  take  any  thing  from  any 
body  again,"  said  Rudeli,  with  burning  tears. 

"And  I  do  believe  thee,  and  will  pray  to  God  for  thee,"  said  the  mother. 
"See,  my  love,  I  give  thy  father  a  paper  which  the  pastor,  with  whom  I  lived 
servant,  gave  me.  "When  thou  art  older  read  it,  and  think  of  me,  and  be  good 
and  true." 

It  was  a  certificate  from  the  late  pastor  of  Eichstatten,  that  Catharine,  the 
sick  woman,  had  served  him  ten  years,  and  helped  him,  indeed,  to  bring  up  his 
children,  after  the  death  of  his  wife ;  that  all  had  been  intrusted  to  Catharine ; 
and  that  she  had  looked  after  every  thing  most  carefully.  The  pastor  thanked 
her  in  it,  and  said  that  she  had  been  as  a  mother  to  his  children,  and  he  should 
never  forget  the  assistance  she  had  been  to  him  in  his  difficulties.  She  had  also 
earned  a  considerable  sum  of  money  in  his  service,  which  she  gave  to  her 
deceased  husband  to  buy  the  meadow,  which  the  bailiff  had  afterward  taken 
from  him  by  a  law  suit. 

After  she  had  given  Rudi  this  paper,  she  said:  "There  are  two  good  shifts 
there.  Do  not  put  either  of  them  on  me  when  I  am  buried — the  one  I  have  on, 
is  good  enough.  And  when  I  am  dead,  let  my  gown  and  my  two  aprons  be  cut 
up  for  the  children." 

Soon  afterward,  she  added:   "Look  carefully  after  Betheli,  Rudi!     She  is  such 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  45 

a  delicate  child ;  and  always  let  the  children  be  kept  clean,  and  well  washed  and 
combed ;  and  every  year  let  them  have  spring  herbs  to  sweeten  their  blood ; 
they  do  them  so  much  good.  And  if  thou  canst  manage  it,  keep  a  goat  for 
them,  during  the  summer — Betheli  can  take  care  of  it  now.  It  grieves  me  to 
think  that  thou  wilt  be  so  solitary,  but  keep  up  thy  courage,  and  do  what  thou 
canst.  This  work  at  the  church  will  be  a  great  help  to  thee — I  thank  God  for 
it." 

The  mother  was  now  silent,  and  the  children  and  their  father  remained  for  a 
time  upon  their  knees,  praying.  Then  they  stood  up,  and  Rudi  said  to  his  moth- 
er :  "  Mother,  I  will  now  go  and  get  the  leaves  for  thy  coverlid." 

She  answered :  "  There  is  no  hurry  for  that,  Rudi !  The  room  is  warmer  now, 
thank  God!  and  thou  must  go  to  the  mason's  with  the  child." 

And  Rudi  beckoned  Betheli  out  of  the  room,  and  said :  "  "Watch  thy  grand- 
mother carefully,  and  if  any  thing  happens  to  her,  send  Anneli  after  me.    I  shall 
be  at  the  mason's." 
CHAPTER  xvm. — A  POOR  BOY  ASKS  PARDON  FOR  HAVING  STOLEN  POTATOES, 

AND   THE   SICK   WOMAN   DIES. 

AND  he  took  the  little  one  by  the  hand,  and  went  with  him. 
Gertrude  was  alone  in  the  house  when  they  arrived,  and  soon  saw  that  both 
the  boy  and  his  father  had  tears  in  their  eyes.     "What  dost  thou  want,  neigh- 
bor Rudi  ?     Why  art  thou  weeping  ?     Why  is  the  little  fellow  weeping  ?"    said 
she,  kindly  taking  his  hand. 

"Alas,  Gertrude?  I  am  in  trouble,"  answered  Rudi.  "I  am  come  to  thee, 
because  Rudeli  has  taken  potatoes  out  of  your  heap.  Yesterday  his  grand- 
mother found  it  out,  and  he  has  confessed  it — forgive  us,  Gertrude. 

"  His  grandmother  is  on  her  death-bed — she  has  just  taken  leave  of  us.  And 
I  am  so  wretched,  I  scarcely  know  what  I  am  saying — Gertrude !  she  begs  thy 
forgiveness  too — I  am  sorry  I  can  not  pay  thee  back  now;  but  I  will  willingly 
work  a  couple  of  days  for  thee,  to  make  it  up.  Forgive  us ! — The  boy  did  it 
from  hunger." 

Gertrude.  "  Say  not  another  word  about  it,  Rudi :  and  thou,  dear  little  fel- 
low !  come  and  promise  me  never  to  take  any  thing  from  any  body  again."  Slip 
kissed  him,  and  said:  "Thou  hast  an  excellent  grandmother!  only  grow  up  as 
pious  and  as  good  as  she  is." 

Rudeli.     "Forgive  me,  Gertrude!  I  will  never  steal  again." 
Ger.     "  No,  my  child,  never  do  so  again.     Thou  dost  not  yet  know  how  mis- 
erable and  unhappy  all  thieves  become.     Do  so  no  more :  and  if  thou  art  hun- 
gry, come  to  me  instead,  and  tell  me.     If  I  can,  I  will  give  thee  something  to 
eat." 

Rudi.  "I  thank  God,  I  have  now  got  work  at  the  building  of  the  church, 
and  I  hope  hunger  will  never  lead  him  to  do  any  thing  of  the  kind  again." 

Ger.  "  My  husband  arid  I  were  very  glad  to  hear  that  the  squire  had  fixed 
upon  thee  as  one." 

Rudi.  "And  I  am  so  glad  that  my  mother  has  lived  to  have  this  comfort ! 
Tell  thy  husband,  I  will  work  under  him  honestly  and  truly,  and  be  there  early 
and  late ;  and  I  shall  be  very  glad  to  allow  any  wages,  to  pay  for  the  potatoes." 
Ger.  "  Say  nothing  of  that,  Rudi.  I  am  sure  my  husband  will  never  take 
it  God  be  praised,  we  are  now  much  better  off,  on  account  of  this  building. 
Rudi,  I  will  go  with  thee  to  thy  mother,  as  she  is  so  very  ill." 


46  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

She  filled  Rudeli's  pocket  with  apples,  and  said  to  him  once  more :  "  Remem- 
ber, my  dear  child,  never  to  take  any  thing  from  any  body  again ;  "  and  she 
then  went  with  Rudi  to  his  mother. 

And  as  he  was  collecting  some  leaves  under  a  nut-tree,  to  fill  his  mother's 
coverlid,  Gertrude  helped  him — and  then  went  with  him  to  her. 

Gertrude  spoke  kindly  to  the  sick  woman,  took  her  hand,  and  wept. 

"Dost  thou  weep,  Gertrude?"  said  the  grandmother.  "It  is  we  who  should 
weep.  Hast  thou  forgiven  us?  " 

Ger.  "0,  do  not  talk  of  forgiveness,  Catharine!  Your  distress  goes  to  my 
heart,  and  still  more  thy  goodness  and  carefulness.  Thy  carefulness  and  hon- 
esty will  certainly  bring  down  the  blessing  of  God  upon  thy  children,  Catharine." 

Catharine.     "Hast  thou  forgiven  us,  Gertrude? " 

Ger.  "  Say  no  more  about  that,  Catharine.  I  only  wish  I  could  do  any  thing 
to  give  thee  ease,  in  thy  sickness." 

Cath.  "  Thou  art  very  good,  Gertrude,  and  I  thank  thee ;  but  God  will  soon 
help  me.  Rudeli,  hast  thou  asked  her  pardon?  Has  she  forgiven  thee?  " 

Rudeli.  "Yes,  grandmother:  see  how  good  she  is."  He  showed  her  his 
pocket  full  of  apples. 

"How  very  sleepy  I  am,"  said  the  grandmother.  "Hast  thou  asked  her 'for- 
giveness properly?" 

Rud.     "  Yes,  grandmother,  with  my  whole  heart." 

Cath.  "A  slumber  creeps  over  me,  and  my  eyes  grow  dim.  I  am  going, 
Gertrude !  "  said  she  softly,  and  in  broken  words.  "  There  is  one  thing  more,  I 
wish  to  ask  thee ;  but  I  don't  know  whether  I  dare.  This  unfortunate  child  has 
stolen  from  thee — may  I  ask  thee,  Gertrude,  when — I  am  dead — these  poor — 
desolate  children — they — are  so  desolate" — she  stretched  out  her  hand — (her 
eyes  were  already  closed,)  "may  I — hope — follow  her — Rud" — she  expired, 
unable  to  finish. 

Rudi  thought  she  had  only  dropped  asleep,  and  said  to  the  children:   "Do 
not  speak  a  word,  she  is  asleep.     0,  if  she  should  yet  recover !  " 
But  Gertrude  thought  it  was  death,  and  told  Rudi  so. 

How  he  and  all  the  little  ones  wrung  their  hands  in  anguish,  I  can  not  de- 
scribe. Reader!  let  me  be  silent  and  weep — for  it  goes  to  my  heart  to  think 
how  man,  in  the  dust  of  earth,  ripens  to  immortality ;  and  how,  in  the  pomp 
and  vanity  of  the  world,  he  decays  without  coming  to  maturity.  N  Weigh  then, 
0  man,  weigh  the  value  of  life,  on  the  bed  of  death ;  and  thou  who  despisest 
the  poor,  pitiest  and  dost  not  know  him — tell  me  whether  he  can  have  lived  un- 
happy, who  can  thus  die ! — But  I  refrain.  J  wish  not  to  teach  you,  0  men !  I 
only  wish  you  to  open  your  eyes,  and  see  for  yourselves,  what  really  is  happiness 
or  misery,  a  blessing  or  a  curse  in  this  world. 

Gertrude  comforted  poor  Rudi,  and  told  him  the  last  wish  of  his  excellent 
mother,  which,  in  his  trouble,  he  had  not  heard. 

Rudi  took  her  by  the  hand,  confidingly — "  What  a  sad  affliction  it  is  to  lose 
my  dear  mother !  How  good  she  was !  I  am  sure,  Gertrude,  thou  will  remem- 
ber her  wish." 

Ger.  "  I  must  have  a  heart  of  stone  if  I  could  forget  it.  I  will  do  what  I 
can  for  thy  children." 

Rudi.     "  God  will  repay  thee  what  thou  dost  for  us." 

Gertrude  turned  toward  the  window,  wiped  the  tears  from  her  face,  raised 
her  eyes  to  heaven,  and  sighed  deeply.  Then  she  took  up  Rudeli  and  his  sig- 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  4f 

ters,  one  after  the  other,  kissed  them  with  warm  tears,  prepared  the  corpse  for 
the  grave,  and  did  not  go  home  till  she  had  done  every  thing  which  was  neces- 
sary. 
CHAPTER   xix. — GOOD   SPIRITS   COMFORT,  CHEER,  AND   SUPPORT  A  MAN,  BUT 

ANXIETY   IS   A   CONTINUAL   TORMENT. 

THE  bailiff',  after  he  had  been  to  Rudi,  proceeded  to  the  other  day -laborers. 
And  first  he  went  to  Jogli  Bar.  He  found  him  splitting  wood,  and  singing  and 
whistling  over  his  chopping-log ;  but  when  he  saw  the  bailiff,  he  looked  up  in 
astonishment:  "If  you  are  come  for  money,  bailiff',  I  have  none." 

Bailiff.  "Thou  art  singing  and  whistling  like  a  bird  in  a  granary.  How 
canst  thou  be  without  money  ?  " 

Bar.  "  If  crying  would  bring  bread,  I  should  not  be  whistling.  But,  in  good 
earnest,  what  do  you  want !  " 

Bailiff.  "  Nothing ;  but  to  tell  thee,  that  thou  art  to  be  a  helper  at  the  build- 
ing of  the  church,  and  to  have  twenty-five  kreutzers  a  day." 

Bar.     "  Can  that  be  true  ?" 

Bailiff.     "  It  is,  indeed.     Thou  must  go  up  to  the  hall  on  Monday." 

Bar.  "If  it  is  really  true,  I  am  very  thankful  for  it,  Mr.  Bailiff*.  You  see 
now  that  I  might  well  be  singing  and  whistling  to-day." 

The  bailiff  went  away,  laughing;  and  said  to  himself:  "I  never  know  what 
it  is  to  be  as  merry  as  this  beggar." 

Bar  went  into  the  house,  to  his  wife.  "Keep  up  a  good  heart,  wife.  I  am 
to  be  day-laborer  at  the  building  of  the  church  1 " 

Wife.  "  It  will  be  long  enough  before  thou  hast  such  a  piece  of  luck.  Thou 
hast  always  a  bag  full  of  hope,  but  not  of  bread." 

Bar.     "  There  shall  be  no  want  of  bread,  when  once  I  get  my  daily  wages." 

Wife.     "But  there  may  be  want  of  wages." 

Bar.     "No,  child,  no!     Arner  pays  his  laborers  well.     No  fear  of  that." 

Wife.     "Art  thou  joking,  or  can  it  be  true  about  the  building?  " 

Bar.  "The  bailiff  has  just  been  here  to  tell  me  to  go  on  Monday  to  the  hall, 
with  the  other  laborers  who  are  to  work  at  the  church ;  so  it  can  not  well  miss." 

Wife.  "  Heaven  be  praised,  if  it  prove  so :  if  I  may  hope  to  have  one  com- 
fortable hour! " 

Bar.  "  Thou  shalt  have  many  a  one.  I  am  as  light-hearted  as  a  child  about 
it.  Thou  wilt  no  longer  scold  me,  when  I  come  home  laughing  and  merry.  I 
will  bring  thee  every  kreutzer,  as  fast  as  I  get  it.  I  should  have  no  pleasure  in 
life,  if  I  did  not  hope  that  the  time  would  yet  come,  when  thou  shouldst  think, 
with  joy,  that  thou  hast  a  good  husband.  If  thy  little  property  was  soon  lost 
in  my  hands,  forgive  me.  God  willing,  I  will  yet  make  it  up  to  thee." 

Wife.  "I  am  glad  to  see  thee  merry;  but  I  am  always  afraid  it  is  from 
thoughtlessness." 

Bar.     "  What  have  I  neglected?  or  what  have  I  done  that  was  wrong?  " 

Wife.  "  Nay,  I  do  not  accuse  thee  of  that ;  but  thou  art  never  troubled  when 
we  have  no  bread." 

Bar.     "  Would  my  being  troubled  bring  us  bread?  " 

Wife.   .  " Do  what  I  will,  I  can  not  help  it: — it  always  makes  me  low." 

Bar.     "Take  courage,  and  cheer  up,  wife.     It  makes  things  easier." 

Wife.     "  Thou  hast  never  a  coat  to  go  up  to  the  hall  in  on  Monday." 

Bar.  "  Oh,  then  I  will  go  in  half  of  one.  Thou  always  findest  something  to 
fret  about,"  said  he;  and  went  off  to  his  log,  and  split  wood  until  dark. 


48  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

Prom  him,  the  bailiff  went  to  Laupi,  who  was  not  at  home ;  so  he  left  the 
message  with  Hugli,  his  neighbor,  and  went  on  to  Hans  Leemann. 

CHAPTER  xx. — FOOLISH  GOSSIPING  LEADS  TO  IDLENESS. 

HE  was  standing  at  his  door,  staring  around  him,  saw  the  bailiff  at  a  distance, 
and  said  to  himself:  "Now  we  shall  have  some  news."  "  What  brings  you  this 
way,  Mr.  Bailiff?" 

Bailiff.     "  I  am  in  search  of  thee,  Leemann." 

Leemann.  "  It  is  doing  me  a  great  honor,  Mr.  Bailiff — but  tell  me,  how  is  the 
mason's  wife  going  on  ?  Is  she  as  pert  as  she  was  yesterday  in  the  church-yard  ? 
What  a  witch  she  was,  bailiff!  " 

Bailiff.     "  Thou  must  not  say  so  now.     Thou  art  to  be  helper  to  her  husband." 

Leemann.     "Is  there  no  other  news,  that  you  come  to  me  with  such  a  tale? " 

Bailiff.  "  Nay,  it  is  true  enough,  and  I  am  come,  by  the  squire's  orders,  to 
tell  thee  of  it." 

Leemann.     " How  did  I  come  to  this  honor,  Mr.  Bailiff?" 

Bailiff.     "I  think  it  must  have  been  in  thy  sleep." 

Leemann.  "  I  will  awake,  however,  if  this  be  true.  What  time  must  one  go 
to  the  work  ?  " 

Bailiff.     "  I  suppose  in  a  morning." 

Leemann.  "And  in  an  afternoon  too,  I  fancy.  How  many  of  us  are  there, 
Mr.  Bailiff?" 

Bailiff.     "Ten." 

Leemann.     "  I  wonder  who  they  are  I     Tell  me." 

The  bailiff  told  him  all  the  names  in  order.  Between  every  one  Leemann 
guessed  twenty  others — not  such  a  one?  nor  such  a  one? — "I  am  losing  time," 
said  the  bailiff  at  last,  and  went  on. 

CHAPTER  XXL — INGRATITUDE  AND  ENVY. 

FROM  him,  the  bailiff  went  to  Jogli  Lenk.  He  was  lying  on  the  stove-bench, 
smoking  his  pipe.  His  wife  was  spinning,  and  five  half  naked  children  were 
sprawling  around. 

The  bailiff  told  his  message  in  few  words. 

Lenk  took  the  pipe  out  of  his  mouth,  and  answered :  "  It's  a  wonder  that  any 
good  thing  comes  to  me !  I  have  always  been  far  enough  out  of  the  way  of 
such  luck,  till  now." 

Bailiff.     "And  many  others  with  thee,  Lenk." 

Lenk.     "  Is  my  brother  amongst  the  day -laborers  ?  " 

Bailiff.     "No." 

Lenk.     "Who  are  the  others?  " 

The  bailiff  told  him  their  names. 

Lenk.  "  But  my  brother  is  a  far  better  workman  than  Rudi,  or  Bar,  or  Marx. 
I  say  nothing  of  Kriecher.  On  my  life,  there  is  not  another  amongst  the  ten, 
except  myself,  who  is  half  so  good  a  workman.  Bailiff,  can  not  you  manage  to 
get  him  in?" 

"I  don't  know"  said  the  bailiff;  and  cutting  short  the  discourse,  he  went 
away. 

Lenk's  wife,  who  was  at  her  wheel,  said  nothing  till  the  bailiff  was  out  of 
hearing;  but  the  conversation  troubled  her;  and  as  soon  as  the  bailiff  was  gone 
sac  said  to  her  husband :  "Thou  art  thankless  both  to  God  and  man.  When 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  49 

God  sends  thee  help  in  thy  great  distress,  thou  dost  nothing  but  abuse  thy  neigh- 
bors, whom  he  has  also  helped." 

Lerik.     "  I  shall  have  to  work  for  the  money,  and  not  get  it  for  nothing." 

Wife.     "  Till  now,  thou  hadst  no  work  to  get  any  by." 

Lenk.     "  But  then  I  had  no  labor." 

Wife.     "And  thy  children  no  bread." 

"What  had  I  more  than  you?"  said  the  lazy  lubber.  His  wife  was  silent, 
and  wept  bitter  tears. 

CHAPTER  xxii. — REMORSE  FOR  PERJURY  CAN  NOT  BE  ALLAYED  BY  CRAFTY  ARTS. 

FROM  Lenk  the  bailiff  went  to  Kriecher,  and  as  he  was  going,  came  unex- 
pectedly upon  Hans  Wust. 

If  he  had  seen  him  in  time,  he  would  have  slipped  out  of  the  way ;  for,  since 
Rudi's  affair,  the  bailiff  and  Wust  never  met  without  feelings  of  self-reproach ; 
but  the  bailiff  met  him  unawares,  at  the  corner  of  the  side  street,  near  the  low- 
er well. 

"Art  thou  there,  Wust?"  said  the  bailiff. 

"Yes,  bailiff,"  answered  Wust. 

Bailiff.  "Why  dost  thou  never  come  near  me?  Hast  thou  forgotten  the 
money  I  lent  thee  ?  " 

Wust.  "  I  have  no  money  at  present,  and  when  I  look  back,  I  am  afraid  I 
have  paid  too  dearly  for  your  money  already." 

Bailiff.  "  Thou  didst  not  talk  in  this  way,  Wust,  when  I  gave  it  thee.  It  is 
serving  a  man  ungraciously." 

Wust.  "Serving  a  man  is  one  thing — but,  serving  a  man  so  that  one  can 
never  have  another  comfortable  hour  on  God's  earth,  is  another." 

Bailiff.  "  Talk  not  so,  Wust !  Thou  didst  not  swear  any  thing  but  what 
was  true." 

Wust.  "So  you  always  say.  But  I  can  not  but  feel  in  my  heart  that  I 
swore  falsely." 

Bailiff.  "  That  is  not  true,  Wust !  On  my  soul,  it  is  not  true.  Thou  didst 
but  swear  to  what  was  read  to  thee,  and  it  was  very  carefully  worded.  I  read 
it  to  thee  more  than  a  hundred  times,  and  it  appeared  to  thee  in  the  same  light 
as  it  did  to  me,  and  thou  saidst  always  'Yes;  I  can  swear  to  that!'  Was  it 
not  so,  Wust?  And  why  art  thou  now  fretting  about  it?  But  it  is  only  on  ac- 
count of  thy  debt.  Thou  wouldst  have  me  wait  longer." 

Wust.  "No,  bailiff;  you  are  mistaken.  If  I  had  the  money,  I  would  pay  it 
down  this  moment,  that  I  might  never  see  your  face  again ;  for  my  heart  smites 
me  whenever  I  look  at  you." 

"Thou  art  a  fool!"   said  the  bailiff;  but  his  own  heart  smote  him  also. 

Wust.  "I  saw  it  as  you  do.  for  a  long  time;  for  it  did  not  come  to  me  at 
first,  that  the  squire  spoke  as  if  he  saw  it  in  quite  a  different  light." 

Bailiff.  "  Thou  hast  nothing  to  do  with  what  the  squire  said  about  it.  Thou 
didst  but  swear  to  the  paper  that  was  read  to  thee." 

Wust.  "  Yes;  but  he  passed  judgment  according  to  what  he  had  understood 
from  it." 

Bailiff.  "  If  the  squire  was  a  fool,  let  him  look  after  it.  What  is  that  to  thee  ? 
He  had  the  paper  in  his  hand ;  and  if  it  did  not  seem  clear  to  him,  he  should 
have  had  it  written  differently." 

Wust.  "I  know  you  can  always  out-talk  me;  but  that  does  not  comfort  my 

19 


•50  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

conscience.  And  at  church,  on  a  sacrament  day,  I  am  in  such  a  horrible  state, 
that  I  could  sink  into  the  earth !  0  bailiff,  v,rould  that  I  had  never  owed  you  any 
thing !  "Would  that  I  had  never  known  you,  or  that  I  had  died  the  day  before 
I  was  forsworn !  " 

Bailiff.  "  For  God's  sake,  Wust,  do  not  fret  in  this  way.  It  is  folly.  Think 
of  all  the  circumstances.  We  went  about  it  very  carefully.  In  thy  presence  I 
asked  the  pastor's  assistant,  point-blank :  Will  Wust  have  sworn  to  any  thing  but 
what  is  in  the  paper,  supposing  he  does  not  understand  it  right  ?  Dost  thou  not 
remember  his  answer  ?  " 

Wust.     "Yes;  but  still " 

Bailiff.  "  Nay,  he  said  these  very  words ; — Wust  will  not  have  sworn  to  a 
hair  more  than  is  in  the  paper.  Were  not  these  his  words  ?  " 

Wust.     "  Yes ;  but  then  is  it  so,  because  he  said  it  ?  " 

Bailiff.     "  Is  it  so  ?    What,  art  thou  not  satisfied  ?  " 

Wust.  "No,  bailiff?  I  will  speak  out  for  once.  The  late  pastor's  assistant 
owed  you  money,  as  well  as  myself;  and  you  know  what  a  fellow  he  was,  and 
how  disorderly.  It  is  little  comfort  to  me  what  such  a  reckless  creature  said." 

Bailiff.  "His  way  of  life  was  nothing  to  thee.  He  understood  the  right 
doctrine,  and  that  thou  knowest." 

Wust.     "  Nay,  I  know  it  not.     But  I  know  he  was  good  for  nothing." 

Bailiff.     "  But  what  did  that  signify  to  thee  ?  " 

Wust.  "  Why,  for  my  part,  if  I  know  a  man  has  been  very  wicked  and  bad 
in  one  point,  I  dare  not  trust  to  his  goodness  in  any  other.  Therefore  I  am  afraid 
that  this  worthless  man  deceived  me,  and  then  what  is  to  become  of  me  ?  " 

Bailiff.  "  Let  these  thoughts  go,  Wust !  Thou  hast  sworn  to  nothing  but 
what  was  true." 

Wust.  "I  did  so,  for  a  long  time;  but  it's  over  now.  I  can  not  cheat  my- 
self any  longer.  Poor  Rudi !  Wherever  I  go  or  stand,  I  see  him  before  me. 
Poor  Rudi !  how  his  misery,  and  hunger,  and  want,  must  rise  up  to  God  against 
me !  0,  and  his  children,  they  are  such  sickly,  starved,  ricketty  things ;  and  as 
yellow  as  gipsies.  They  were  fine,  stout,  healthy  children ;  and  my  ll*  f^V 
the  meadow  from  them," 

Bailiff.     "I  had  a  right  to  it.     It  was  as  I  told  thee.     And  now,  Rv 
work  at  the  building  of  the  church,  and  may  come  round  again." 

Wust.  "What  good  can  that  do  me?  If  I  had  not  sworn,  it  would  be  all 
the  same  to  me,  whether  Rudi  were  rich  or  a  beggar." 

Bailiff.     "Do  not  let  it  disturb  thee  so!     I  had  a  right  to  it." 

Wust.  "Not  disturb  me?  If  I  had  broken  into  his  house  and  stolen  all  his 
goods,  it  would  trouble  me  less.  0  bailiff,  bailiff  1  that  I  should  have  acted  thus ! 
It  is  now  near  Easter  again.  I  wish  I  were  buried  a  thousand  feet  deep  in  the 
earth!" 

Bailiff.  "For  heaven's  sake,  Wust,  do  not  go  on  in  this  way  in  the  open 
street,  before  all  the  people.  If  any  body  should  hear  thee  I  It  is  thine  own 
stupidity  that  plagues  thee.  All  that  thou  hast  sworn  to  was  true." 

Wust.  "  Stupidity  here,  stupidity  there !  If  I  had  not  sworn,  Rudi  would 
still  have  had  his  meadow." 

Bailiff.  "  But  thou  didst  not  say  it  was  not  his,  or  that  it  was  mine.  What 
in.  the  devil's  name  is  it  to  thee  who  has  the  meadow?  " 

Wust.  "  It  is  nothing  to  me  who  has  the  meadow,  but  it  is  that  I  have  sworn 
falsely." 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  5  J 

Bailiff.  "  I  tell  thee  it  is  not  true  that  thou  hast  sworn  falsely.  That  which 
thou  didst  swear  to,  was  true." 

Wust.  "  But  it  was  a  deceit !  I  did  not  tell  the  squire  how  I  understood  the 
writing ;  and  he  understood  it  differently.  Say  what  you  will,  I  know,  I  feel  it 
in  myself,  that  I  was  a  Judas,  and  a  betrayer;  and  that  my  oath  was  a  false  one, 
words  or  no  words." 

Bailiff.  "  I  am  sorry  for  thee,  Wust,  that  thou  art  so  stupid ;  but  thou  art 
ill ;  thou  lookest  like  one  risen  from  the  grave ;  and  when  a  man  is  not  well  he 
sees  things  so  differently.  Compose  thyself,  Wust.  Come  home  with  me,  and 
let  us  drink  a  glass  of  wine  together." 

Wust.     "I  can  not,  bailiff.     Nothing  upon  earth  can  cheer  me  now." 

Baili/.  "  Comfort  thyself,  Wust.  Drive  it  out  of  thy  head,  and  forget  it  till 
thou  art  well  again.  Thou  wilt  then  perceive  that  I  was  in  the  right,  and  I  will 
tear  thy  note  in  pieces.  Perhaps  it  will  be  a  relief  to  thee." 

Wust.  "No  bailiff!  keep  the  note.  If  I  must  eat  my  own  flesh  for  hunger, 
I  will  pay  you  that  debt.  I  will  not  have  the  price  of  blood  upon  my  soul.  If 
you  have  betrayed  me,  if  the  pastor's  assistant  has  deceived  me,  perhaps  God 
will  forgive  me.  I  did  not  mean  it  to  turn  out  so." 

Baili/.  "  Here  is  thy  note,  Wust.  See,  I  destroy  it  before  thy  eyes ;  and  I 
take  it  on  my  own  responsibility  that  I  was  in  the  right ;  and  now  be  comforted." 

Wust.  "Take  what  you  will  upon  yourself,  bailiff,  I  will  pay  you  my  debt. 
The  day  after  to-morrow  I  will  sell  my  Sunday  coat,  and  pay  you." 

Bailiff.  "  Think  better  of  it.  Thou  deceivest  thyself,  upon  my  life.  But  I 
must  go  away  now." 

Wust.  "  It  is  a  mercy  that  you  are  going.  If  you  were  to  stay  much  longer, 
I  should  go  mad  before  your  eyes." 

Bailiff.     "Quiet  thyself,  for  heaven's  sake,  Wust."     They  then  separated. 

But  the  bailiff,  when  he  was  alone,  could  not  help  saying  to  himself,  with  a 
sigh :  "  I  am  sorry  he  met  me  just  now.  I  have  had  enough  before  to-day,  with- 
out this."  He  soon,  however,  hardened  himself  again,  and  said:  "I  am  sorry 
for  the  poor  wretch ;  he  is  so  troubled !  but  he  is  in  the  wrong.  It  is  nothing  to 
him  how  the  judge  understood  it.  The  devil  might  take  the  oaths,  if  the  exact 
meaning  of  them  were  to  be  looked  after  so  sharply.  I  know  that  other  people, 
and  those  who  should  understand  the  thing  best,  take  oaths  after  their  own  way 
of  interpreting  them,  and  are  undisturbed,  where  a  poor  wretch,  who  thinks  like 
Wust,  would  say  he  saw  as  clear  as  day  that  it  was  a  deceit.  But  I  wish  these 
thoughts  were  out  of  my  head,  they  make  me  uncomfortable !  I  will  go  back 
and  drink  a  glass  of  wine."  He  did  so,  and  then  went  to  Felix  Kriecher. 

CHAPTER  xxm. — A  HYPOCRITE,  AND  A  SUFFERING  WOMAX. 
FELIX  KRIECHER  was  a  man  who  always  had  the  air  of  enduring  the  greatest 
afflictions  with  the  patience  of  a  martyr.  To  the  barber,  the  bailiff,  and  every 
stranger,  he  bowed  as  low  as  to  the  pastor ;  and  he  went  to  all  the  weekly  pray- 
ers at  church,  and  to  all  the  Sunday  evening  singing.  Sometimes  he  got,  by 
this  means,  a  glass  of  wine ;  and  occasionally,  when  he  was  very  late,  and  man- 
aged well,  had  an  invitation  to  supper.  He  took  great  pains  to  be  in  favor  with 
all  the  pietists  of  the  village,  but  could  not  quite  succeed ;  for  he  was  very  care- 
ful not  to  offend  the  other  party  on  their  account,  and  this  does  not  suit  fanatics. 
They  will  not  let  their  disciples  be  well  with  both  sides ;  and  thus,  notwith- 
standing his  appearance  of  humility,  and  all  the  hypocriMcal  arts  he  practiced 


52  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

and  even  his  spiritual  pride,  which  generally  suits  fanatics,  he  was  not  admitted 
into  their  set. 

With  all  these  exterior  and  acknowledged  qualities,  he  had  some  others;  and 
though  these  were  only  for  secret  use  in  his  domestic  life,  I  must  now  speak  of 
them. 

To  his  wife  and  children  he  was  a  devil.  In  the  most  extreme  poverty  he 
still  insisted  upon  having  something  dainty  to  eat ;  and  if  he  did  not  get  it,  all 
went  wrong — the  children  were  not  properly  combed  and  washed ;  and  if  he 
could  find  nothing  else  to  blame,  and  one  of  his  little  children  of  four  years  old 
stared  at  him,  he  would  beat  it,  to  teach  it  proper  respect  to  him. 

"Thou  art  a  fool!"  said  his  wife  to  him  one  day  when  this  had  occurred. 
But,  though  she  was  quite  right,  and  had  told  him  nothing  but  the  simple  truth, 
he  kicked  her  for  it ;  and  as  she  was  running  away  from  him,  she  fell  by  the 
door,  and  made  two  deep  wounds  in  her  head.  This  frightened  the  man ;  for  he 
thought,  wisely  enough,  that  a  broken  head  might  tell  tales. 

And  as  all  hypocrites,  when  they  are  alarmed,  crouch,  and  fawn,  and  humble 
themselves,  so  did  Kriecher  to  his  wife.  He  coaxed  her;  and  begged  and  en- 
treated, for  God's  sake,  not  that  she  would  forgive  him,  but  that  she  would 
promise  to  tell  nobody  of  it.  She  did  so,  and  patiently  endured  the  pain  of  a 
very  bad  wound,  and  told  the  barber  and  the  other  neighbors  that  she  had 
fallen ;  but  many  of  them  did  not  believe  her.  Poor  woman !  she  might  have 
known  beforehand  that  no  hypocrite  was  ever  grateful,  or  kept  his  word,  and 
should  not  have  trusted  him.  But  what  do  I  say?  Alasl  she  knew  all  this; 
but  she  thought  of  her  children,  and  knew  that  God  only  could  change  his  heart, 
and  that  it  was  of  no  use  to  be  talking  about  it.  She  is  an  excellent  woman, 
and  it  is  grievous  to  think  how  unhappy  he  makes  her,  and  what  she  suffers 
daily  by  his  means.  She  was  silent,  but  prayed  to  God;  and  thanked  him  for 
the  afflictions  with  which  he  tried  her. 

0  eternity ! — when  thou  revealest  the  ways  of  God,  and  the  blessedness  of 
those  to  whom  he  teaches  steadfastness,  courage,  and  patience,  by  suffering, 
want,  and  sorrow — 0  eternity  1  how  wilt  thou  exalt  those  tried  ones  who  have 
been  so  lowly  here. 

Kriecher  had  forgotten  the  wounds,  almost  before  they  were  healed,  and  went 
on  as  usual.  He  tormented  and  harassed  his  wife,  without  cause  or  excuse, 
every  day,  and  embittered  her  life.  A  quarter  of  an  hour  before  the  bailiff 
came,  the  cat  had  overturned  the  lamp,  and  wasted  a  drop  or  two  of  oil. 
"  Thou  stupid  creature,  thou  shouldst  have  taken  better  care,"  said  he  to  his  wife, 
with  his  accustomed  fury ;  (i  thou  mayst  now  sit  in  the  dark,  and  light  the  fire 
with  cow-dung,  thou  horned  beast!"  His  wife  said  not  a  word,  but  the  tears 
streamed  down  her  cheeks,  and  the  children  cried  in  the  corners  with  their 
mother. 

At  this  moment  the  bailiff  knocked.  "  Hush !  for  heaven's  sake,  be  quiet  I 
What  is  to  be  done?  The  bailiff  is  at  the  door,"  said  Kriecher,  and,  hastily 
wiping  off  the  children's  tears  with  his  handkerchief,  he  threatened  to  cut  them 
in  pieces,  if  he  heard  another  whimper;  then  opened  the  door  to  the  bailiff, 
bowed,  and  said:  "What  are  your  commands,  Mr.  Bailiff?"  The  bailiff  told 
him  his  errrand,  briefly. 

But  Kriecher,  who  was  listening  at  the  door,  and  heard  no  more  crying,  an- 
swered :  "  Come  into  the  room,  Mr.  Bailiff,  and  I  will  tell  my  dear  wife  what  a 
piece  of  good  fortune  has  befallen  us."  The  bailiff  went  into  the  room,  and 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  53 

Kriecher  said  to  his  wife :  "  The  bailiff  has  just  brought  me  the  good  news  that 
I  am  to  be  one  of  the  day-laborers  at  the  building  of  the  church;  and  a  great 
favor  it  is,  for  which  I  can  riot  be  sufficiently  thankful." 

The  wife  answered,  "Thank  God!"  and  a  sigh  escaped  from  her. 

Bailiff.     "  Is  something  the  matter  with  thy  wife  ?  " 

"She  is  not  very  well  to-day,  Mr.  Bailiff,"  said  Kriecher,  throwing  an  angry, 
threatening  look  toward  his  wife. 

Bailiff.     "  I  must  be  going  on.     I  wish  her  better." 

Wife.     "  Good-bye,  Mr.  Bailiff." 

Kriecher.  "May  I  beg  you,  Mr.  Bailiff,  to  be  so  good  as  to  thank  the  squire, 
in  my  name,  for  this  favor." 

Bailiff.     "  Thou  canst  thank  him  thyself." 

Kriech.  "  You  are  right,  Mr.  Bailiff.  It  was  a  great  liberty  in  me  to  ask  you 
to  do  it.  I  will  go  to-morrow  to  the  hall.  It  is  my  duty  to  do  so." 

Bailiff.  "All  the  others  are  going  on  Monday  morning,  and  I  think  thou 
hadst  better  go  with  them." 

Kriech.  "  Of  course,  yes,  certainly,  Mr.  Bailiff.  I  did  not  know  they  were 
going." 

Bailiff.     "Good-bye,  Kriecher." 

Kriech.     "I  am  greatly  indebted  to  you,  Mr.  Bailiff. 

Bailiff.  "  Thou  hast  nothing  to  thank  me  for."  And  he  went  away,  saying 
to  himself,  "I  am  much  mistaken,  if  this  fellow  is  not  one  of  the  devil's  own. 
Perhaps  he  is  the  kind  of  man  to  suit  me  \yith  the  mason — but  who  dare 
trust  a  hypocrite  ?  I  would  rather  have  Shaben  Michel.  He  is  a  downright 
rogue." 

CHAPTER  xxiv. — AN  HONEST,  JOYFUL,  THANKFUL  HEART. 

FROM  Kriecher  the  bailiff  went  to  young  Abi,  who  jumped  for  joy  when  he 
heard  the  good  news ;  and  sprang  up  like  a  young  heifer  when  it  is  turned  out 
in  spring.  "  I  will  go  and  tell  my  wife,  that  she  may  rejoice  with  me.  No !  I 
will  wait  till  to-morrow.  To-morrow  it  will  be  eight  years  since  we  were  mar- 
ried. It  was  St.  Joseph's  day.  I  remember  it,  as  if  it  were  yesterday.  We 
have  had  many  a  hard  hour  since ;  but  many  a  happy  one,  too.  God  be  thanked 
for  all.  To-morrow,  as  soon  as  she  wakes,  I  will  tell  her.  I  wish  the  time  were 
come !  I  can  see  just  how  she  will  laugh  and  cry  over  it ;  and  how  she  will 
press  her  children  and  me  to  her  heart  for  joy.  0  that  to-morrow  were  come ! 
I  will  kill  the  cock,  and  boil  it  in  the  broth,  without  her  knowing  any  thing 
about  it.  She  would  enjoy  it  then,  though  she  would  be  soriy  to  have  it  killed. 
No,  no !  it  will  be  no  sin  to  kill  it  for  such  a  joyful  occasion.  I  will  venture  it. 
I  will  stay  at  home  all  day  and  make  merry  with  her  and  the  children.  No,  I 
will  go  with  her  to  church  and  to  the  sacrament.  We  will  rejoice  and  be  glad; 
and  thank  God  for  all  his  goodness." 

Thus  did  young  Abi  talk  to  himself,  in  the  joy  of  his  heart,  at  the  good  news 
the  bailiff  had  brought  him.  He  could  scarcely,  in  his  eagerness,  wait  till  the 
morrow  came,  when  he  did  as  he  had  said  he  would. 

CHAPTER  xxv. — HOW  ROGUES  TALK  TO  EACH  OTHER. 

FROM  Abi  the  bailiff  went  to  Shaben  Michel,  who  saw  him  at  a  distance,  beck- 
oned him  into  a  corner,  behind  the  house,  and  said:  "What  the  deuce  art  thou 
about  now  ?  " 


54  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

Bailiff.     "A  merry-making." 

Michel.  "  Truly,  thou  art  a  likely  fellow  to  be  sent  out  to  invite  guests  to 
weddings,  dances,  and  merry-makings." 

Bailiff.     "  "Well,  it  is  nothing  dismal,  at  all  events." 

Mich.     "What  then!" 

Bailiff.     "  Thou  art  got  into  new  company." 

Midi.     "  Who  are  they,  and  what  is  it  for?  " 

Bailiff.     "Hubel  Rudi,  Jenk,  Leemann,  Kriecher,  and  Marx  Reuti." 

Mich.     "  Nonsense !     What  have  I  to  do  with  these  fellows? " 

Bailiff.  "  To  build  up  and  adorn  the  house  of  the  Lord  in  Bonnal,  and  the 
walls  round  about  it." 

Mich.     "  In  sober  earnest  ?" 

Bailiff.     "Yes,  by  G !" 

Mich.     "  But  who  has  chosen  out  the  blind  and  lame  for  this  work  ?  " 

Bailiff.     "  The  well  and  nobly  born,  my  wise  and  potent  master,  the  squire !  " 

Mich.     "Is  he  mad?" 

Bailiff.     "  How  should  I  know  ?  " 

Mich.     "This  looks  like  it." 

Bailiff.  "  Perhaps  it  would  not  be  the  worst  thing  that  could  happen.  Light 
wood  is  easily  turned.  But'  I  must  away.  Come  to  me  to-night,  I  want  to 
speak  to  thee." 

Mich.     "  I  will  not  fail.     Who  art  thou  for  next  ?  " 

Bailiff.     "Marx  Reuti." 

Mich.  "He  is  a  proper  fellow  for  work!  a  man  must  be  out  of  his  mind  to 
choose  him.  I  do  n't  believe  he  takes  a  mattock  or  spade  into  his  hand  the  year 
through ;  and  he  is  half  lame  on  one  side." 

Bailiff.     "  What  does  that  signify?     Only  do  thou  come  to  me  to-night." 

The  bailiff  then  went  on  to  Marx  Reuti. 

CHAPTER  xxvi. — PRIDE,  IN  POVERTY  AND  DISTRESS,  LEADS  TO  THE  MOST  UN- 
NATURAL AND  HORRIBLE  DEEDS. 

THIS  man  had  formerly  been  well  off,  and  carried  on  business  for  himself;  but 
he  vras  now  without  occupation,  and  lived  almost  entirely  upon  the  charity  of 
the  pastor  and  some  of  his  relations,  who  were  able  to  help  him. 

In  all  his  distress,  he  always  kept  up  his  pride,  and  concealed,  as  much  as  he 
could,  the  want  and  hunger  of  his  family,  except  from  those  who  gave  him  as- 
sistance. 

When  he  saw  the  bailiff,  he  started — I  can  not  say  he  turned  pale,  for  he  was 
always  as  white  as  a  ghost.  He  took  up  the  rags  which  lay  about,  and  thrust 
them  under  the  coverlid  of  the  bed,  and  ordered  the  half-naked  children  to  hide 
themselves  directly  in  the  next  room.  "Lord  Jesus!"  said  the  children,  "it 
snows  and  rains  in.  Only  listen  what  a  storm  it  is !  There  is  no  window  in 
the  room." 

"  Get  along,  you  godless  brats !  how  you  distract  me.  Do  you  think  there  is 
no  need  for  you  to  learn  to  mortify  the  flesh  ?  " 

"We  can  not  bear  it,  father!  "  said  the  children. 

"He  will  not  stay  long,  you  heretics!  "  said  the  father;  and  pushing  them  in, 
he  fastened  the  door,  and  then  invited  the  bailiff  into  the  house. 

When  he  had  delivered  his  message,  Marx  thanked  him,  and  said :  "  Am  I  to 
be  an  overlooker  over  these  men  ?  " 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  55 

"  What  art  thou  thinking  of)  Marx  ?  "  answered  the  bailiff.  "  No  1  thou  art  to 
be  a  day-laborer  with  the  rest." 

Marx.     "So,  Mr.  Bailiff  I" 

Bailiff.     "  It  is  at  thy  own  choice,  if  thou  dost  not  like  the  work." 

Marx.  "In  truth,  I  am  not  accustomed  to  any  thing  of  the  kind;  but,  if  the 
squire  and  the  pastor  wish  it,  I  can  not  decline,  and  will  undertake  it." 

Bailiff.  "  It  will  rejoice  them  greatly ;  and  I  think  the  squire  will  almost 
send  me  again  to  thank  thee." 

Marx.  "Nay,  I  don't  mean  exactly  that;  but,  in  a  common  way,  I  cannot 
serve  every  body  as  a  day-laborer. 

Bailiff.     "  Then  thou  hast  enough  to  eat,  I  suppose." 

Marx.     "  Thank  God !  I  have  as  yet." 

Bailiff.     "  But  I  know  well  enough  where  thy  children  are." 

Marx.     "  They  are  dining  with  my  wife's  sister." 

Bailiff.     "  I  thought  I  heard  children  crying  in  the  next  room." 

Marx.     "  There  is  not  one  of  them  in  the  house." 

The  bailiff  heard  the  cry  again,  opened  the  door,  without  ceremony,  saw  the 
almost  naked  children  shivering  and  sobbing  with  the  wind,  rain,  and  snow, 
which  came  in  through  the  window,  so  that  they  could  hardly  speak,  and  said : 
"Is  this  the  place  where  thy  children  dine,  Marx?  Thou  art  a  hound,  and  a 
hypocrite,  and  thy  damned  pride  often  makes  thee  act  in  this  way." 

Marx.  "For  heaven's  sake,  do  not  tell  any  body  ;  do  not  betray  me,  Bailiff! 
I  should  be  the  most  miserable  man  in  the  world  if  it  were  known." 

Bailiff.  "  Art  thou  out  of  thy  senses  ?  Even  now  thou  dost  not  tell  them  to 
come  out  of  such  a  dog-kennel.  Dost  thou  not  see  that  they  are  yellow  and 
blue  with  cold?  I  would  not  use  my  poodle  in  such  a  way." 

Marx.     "  Come  out,  then,  children — but,  bailiff,  for  mercy's  sake,  tell  nobody." 

Bailiff.     "  And  all  this  time,  forsooth,  thou  playest  the  saint  before  the  pastor." 

Marx.     "  I  beseech  you  tell  nobody." 

Bailiff.  "  Thou  art  worse  than  a  brute.  Thou  a  saint!  Thou  art  an  infidel. 
Dost  thou  hear  ?  thou  art  an  infidel,  for  no  true  man  would  act  in  such  a  way. 
And  why  must  thou  go  and  tell  tales  to  the  priest  about  the  battle  which  took 
place  last  week.  It  must  have  been  thou  who  told  him ;  for  at  twelve  o'clock, 
when  it  happened,  thou  wert  going  home,  past  my  house,  from  one  of  thy  holy 
banquets." 

Marx.     "No,  on  my  life!     Do  not  believe  it.     I  assure  you  it  was  not  so." 

Bailiff.     "  Darest  thou  say  so  ?  " 

Marx.  "God  knows  it  was  not  so,  bailiff!  May  I  never  stir  from  this  spot 
if  it  was !  " 

Bailiff.  "  Marx !  darest  thou  maintain  what  thou  sayest  before  me  to  the 
pastor's  face  ?  I  know  more  about  it  than  thou  thinkest." 

Marx  stammered :  "  I  know — I  could — I  did  not  begin  " — 

"  Such  a  brute,  and  such  a  liar  as  thou  art,  I  never  saw  in  my  life !  We  un- 
derstand each  other  now,"  said  the  bailiff:  and  he  went  that  moment  to  the 
pastor's  cook,  who  laughed  till  she  was  half  dead  at  the  pious  Israelite,  Marx 
Eeuti,  and  faithfully  promised  to  bring  it  to  the  pastor's  ears. 

And  the  bailiff  rejoiced  in  his  heart  that,  probably,  the  pastor  would  give  the 
wicked  heretic  his  weekly  bread  no  longer ;  but  he  was  mistaken,  for  the  pastor 
had,  before  this,  given  him  the  bread,  not  on  account  of  his  virtues,  but  of  his 
hunger. 


56  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

CHAPTER  xxvu. — ACTIVITY  AND  INDUSTRY,  WITHOUT  A  KIND  AND  GRATEFUL 

HEART. 

FROM  Marx  the  bailiff  went  to  the  last  of  the  number.  This  was  Kienast,  a 
sickly  man.  He  was  not  yet  fifty  years  old,  but  poverty  and  anxiety  had  worn 
him  out,  and  this  day,  in  particular,  he  was  in  terrible  distress. 

His  eldest  daughter  had,  the  day  before,  hired  herself  out  to  service  in  the 
town,  and  had  showed  her  father  the  earnest-money  that  morning,  which  made 
the  poor  man  very  uneasy. 

His  wife  was  with  child,  and  near  her  time ;  and  Susan  was  the  only  one  of  the 
children  who  could  be  any  help  to  them,  and  now  she  was  to  go  to  service  in  a 
fortnight. 

The  father  begged  her,  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  to  return  the  money,  and  stay 
with  him,  till  after  her  mother's  confinement. 

"I  will  not,"  answered  the  daughter.  "Where  shall  I  find  another  service, 
if  I  give  up  this  ?  " 

Father.  "After  thy  mother  is  brought  to  bed,  I  will  go  myself  into  the 
town,  and  help  thee  to  find  another.  Only  stay  till  then." 

Daughter.  "It  will  be  half  a  year  before  I  can  hire  myself  again;  and  the 
service  I  have  got  is  a  good  one.  Who  knows  how  you  will  help  me  ?  and,  in 
short,  I  will  not  wait  for  another  attempt." 

Father.  "  But  thou  knowest,  Susan,  that  I  have  done  all  I  could  for  thee. 
Think  of  thy  childhood,  and  do  not  leave  me  in  my  necessity." 

Daughter.     "  Do  you  wish  then,  father,  to  stand  in  the  way  of  my  happiness  ?  " 

Father.  "  Alas !  it  is  not  for  thy  happiness,  that  thou  shouldst  leave  thy  poor 
parents  in  such  circumstances.  Do  not  go,  Susan,  I  beg  of  thee.  My  wife  has 
a  very  handsome  apron,  it  is  the  last  she  has  left,  and  she  values  it  very  much  ; 
it  was  a  keepsake ;  but  she  shall  give  it  thee,  after  her  confinement,  if  thou 
wilt  only  stay." 

Daughter.  "  I  will  not  stay,  either  for  your  gifts  or  your  good  words.  I  can 
earn  such  as  that,  and  better.  It  is  time  for  me  to  be  doing  something  for  my- 
self! If  I  were  to  stay  ten  years  with  you,  I  should  not  get  a  bed  and  a  chest." 

Father.  "Thou  wilt  not  get  these  in  one  half-year.  After  this  once,  I  will 
not  seek  to  detain  thee.  Stay  only  these  few  weeks." 

"No,  I  will  not,  father!  "  answered  the  daughter;  and  she  turned  away,  and 
ran  into  a  neighbor's  house. 

The  father  stood  there,  bent  down  by  anxiety  and  care,  and  said  to  himself: 
"  What  shall  I  do  in  this  misfortune  ?  How  shall  I  deliver  such  a  Job's  mes- 
sage to  my  poor  wife  ?  I  have  been  very  much  to  blame  for  not  doing  my  duty 
better  by  this  child.  I  always  passed  over  every  thing,  because  she  worked  so 
well.  My  wife  said  to  me  a  hundred  times :  '  She  is  so  pert  and  rude  to  her 
parents  ;  and  if  she  has  to  teach  her  sisters,  or  do  any  thing  for  them,  she  does  it 
so  hastily  and  saucily,  and  so  entirely  without  kindness  and  affection,  that 
the}1-  can  none  of  them  ever  learn  any  thing  from  her! '  But  she  works  so  well, 
we  must  excuse  something,  and  perhaps  it  is  the  fault  of  the  others,  was  always 
my  answer ;  and  now  I  have  my  reward.  I  should  have  remembered  that  if 
the  heart  be  hard,  whatever  other  good  qualities  any  one  may  have,  they  are 
all  in  vain.  One  can  not  depend  upon  them.  I  wish  my  wife  did  but  know." 

As  the  man  was  speaking  thus  to  himself,  the  bailiff  came  close  up,  without 
his  being  aware. 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  57 

"  What  darest  thou  not  tell  thy  wife  ?  "  said  he. 

Kienast  looked  up,  saw  the  bailiff,  and  said :  "  Is  that  you,  bailiff  ?  "What 
dare  I  not  tell  my  wife  ?  Susan  has  hired  herself  out  to  service  in  the  town, 
and  we  have  such  need  of  her  at  home!  But  I  had  almost  forgotten  to  ask 
what  you  wanted  with  me." 

Bailiff.  "If  this  be  the  case  with  Susan,  perhaps  my  news  will  be  a  comfort 
to  thee." 

Kienast.     "That  would,  be  help  indeed." 

Bailiff.  "Thou  art  to  have  work  at  the  building  of  the  church,  and  twenty- 
five  kreutzers  a  day,  wages." 

Kienast.     "Lord  God  in  heaven!     May  I  hope  for  such  a  help  as  this?  " 

Bailiff.     "  Yes,  Kienast.     It  is,  indeed,  as  I  tell  thee." 

Kienast.  "Then  God  be  praised  for  it."  He  turned  faint,  and  his  limbs 
shook.  "  I  must  sit  down.  This  joy,  in  my  troubles,  has  overcome  me." 

He  sat  down  on  a  log  of  wood,  and  leaned  against  the  wall  of  the  house,  to 
keep  himself  from  falling. 

The  bailiff  said :  "  Thou  canst  bear  but  little  1 " 

And  Kienast  answered :  "I  have  not  broken  my  fast  to-day." 

"And  so  late!  "  said  the  bailiff;  and  he  went  on  his  way. 

The  poor  wife,  from  the  house,  had  seen  the  bailiff  join  her  husband,  and 
groaned  aloud. 

"  This  is  some  fresh  misfortune !  My  husband  has  been  like  one  beside  him- 
self all  day,  and  knows  not  what  he  is  doing ;  and  just  now  I  saw  Susan,  in  the 
next  house,  lift  up  her  hands  in  a  passion ;  and  here  is  the  bailiff— what  can  have 
happened  ?  There  is  not  a  more  unfortunate  woman  under  the  sun !  So  near 
forty,  and  a  child  every  year,  and  care  and  want  and  pain  all  the  tune !  "  Thus 
did  the  poor  woman  grieve  in  the  house. 

The  husband,  in  the  mean  time,  had  recovered  himself,  and  came  to  her  with 
such  a  cheerful,  happy  face  as  she  had  not  seen  for  many  a  month. 

"  Thou  lookest  merry!  Dost  thou  think  to  keep  it  from  me  that  the  bailiff 
has  been  here  ?  "  said  the  woman. 

And  he  answered.    "  He  is  come,  as  it  were,  from  heaven  to  comfort  us." 

"Is  it  possible?  "  said  the  woman. 

Kienast.  "  Sit  down,  wife  !  I  must  tell  thee  the  good  news."  Then  he  told 
her  what  Susan  had  done,  and  what  trouble  he  had  been  in ;  and  how,  nowr  he- 
was  helped  out  of  all  his  distress. 

Then  he  ate  the  food,  which  in  his  trouble  he  had  left  standing  there  at  noon ; 
and  he  and  his  wife  shed  tears  of  thankfulness  to  God,  who  had  thus  helped 
them  in  their  distress.     And  they  let  Susan  go,  that  very  day,  into  service,  as 
she  wished. 
CHAPTER  xxvm. — A  SATURDAY  EVENING  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  A  BAILIFF,  WHO  is 

A   LANDLORD. 

Now  came  the  bailiff  home  from  his  journey,  tired  and  thirsty.  It  was  late ; 
for  Kienast  lived  up  the  hill,  two  or  three  miles  from  the  village. 

In  the  mean  time  he  had  had  it  given  out,  by  his  friends,  that  he  was  not  at  all 
alarmed  by  what  had  happened  yesterday ;  and  had  not  been  so  merry  and 
jovial  as  he  was  to-day,  for  a  year. 

This  made  some  take  courage,  toward  evening,  to  creep  quietly  to  the  tavern. 

"When  it  began  to  be  dark,  still  more  came ;  and  at  night,  by  seven  o'clock, 
the  tables  were  almost  as  full  as  usual. 


58  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

Thus  it  happens,  when  a  fowlerr  in  autumn,  shoots  a  bird  in  a  cherry-tree,  all 
the  others,  which  were  pecking  at  the  cherries,  fly  fearfully  and  hastily  away 
from  the  tree,  chirping  the  note  of  alarm.  But,  after  a  while,  one,  a  solitary 
one  at  first,  perches  upon  the  tree — and,  if  it  no  longer  sees  the  fowler,  it 
whistles,  not  the  sound  of  danger,  but  the  bold,  loud  note  of  joy  at  finding 
food.  At  the  call  of  the  daring  adventurer,  the  others  flock  timidly  back  again, 
and  all  feed  upon  the  cherries,  as  if  the  fowler  had  never  fired. 

So  it  was  here ;  and  thus  was  the  room  once  more  filled  with  neighbors,  who 
yesterday,  and  even  this  morning,  would  not  have  ventured  to  come. 

In  all  mischievous,  and  even  wicked  deeds,  people  are  always  merry  and 
bold,  when  they  are  in  a  crowd,  and  when  those  who  give  the  tone  to  it  are 
daring  and  impudent ;  and,  as  such  leaders  are  not  wanting  in  taverns,  it  can 
not  be  denied  that  such  places  tempt  the  common  people  to  all  wickedness, 
and  are  much  more  likely  to  lead  them  on  to  rash  and  thoughtless  deeds,  than 
poor  simple  schools  are  to  bring  them  up  to  a  quiet  and  domestic  life. 

The  neighbors  in  the  tavern  were  now  the  bailiff's  friends  again ;  for  they  sat 
over  his  ale.  One  began  to  say,  that  the  bailiff  was  a  manly  fellow,  and  that, 

by  G ,  nobody  had  ever  yet  mastered  him.     Another,  that  Arner  was  a  child, 

and  the  bailiff  had  managed  his  grandfather.  Another,  that  it  was  not  right ;  and, 
by  heaven,  he  could  not  answer  it  to  his  conscience,  thus  to  cheat  the  parish  of 
the  landlord's  right,  which  had  belonged  to  it  ever  since  the  days  of  Noah  and 
Abraham.  Another  swore,  that  he  had  not  got  possession,  by  thunder !  and 
that  there  should  be  a  struggle  for  it  yet,  in  spite  of  all  the  devils,  and  a  parish 
meeting  held  to-morrow. 

Then  again,  one  said,  there  is  no  need  of  that,  for  the  bailiff  had  always  over- 
come all  his  enemies  ;  and  would  not  turn  over  a  new  leaf,  either  with  his  hon- 
or the  squire,  or  with  the  beggarly  mason. 

Thus  did  the  men  go  on,  talking  and  drinking. 

The  bailiff's  wife  laughed  to  herself,  set  one  pitcher  after  another  upon  the 
table,  and  marked  all  carefully  down  with  chalk  upon  a  board  in  the  next  room. 

Now  came  the  bailiff  home ;  and  he  rejoiced  in  his  heart  to  find  the  tables 
surrounded  by  the  old  set. 

"This  is  hearty  in  you,  my  good  fellows,  not  to  forsake  me,"  said  he  to 
them. 

/'"We  are  not  tired  of  thee  yet,"  answered  the  countrymen;  and  drank  his 
health,  with  loud  shouts  and  huzzas. 

"  There  is  a  great  noise,  neighbors !  We  must  keep  out  of  trouble ;  and  this 
is  Saturday  night,"  said  the  bailiff.  "  Put  the  shutters  to,  wife ;  and  put  out  the 
lights  toward  the  street.  We  had  better  go  into  the  back  room.  Is  it  warm, 
wife?" 

Wife.     "  Yes,  I  made  a  fire  there  on  purpose." 

Bailiff.     "  Very  well ;  carry  all  off  the  table  into  the  back  room." 

His  wife  and  the  neighbors  carried  the  glasses,  pitchers,  bread,  cheese,  knives, 
plates,  cards,  and  dice,  into  the  back  room ;  from  which,  if  they  had  been  mur- 
dering one  another,  nothing  could  have  been  heard  in  the  street. 

"  There  now,  we  are  safe  from  rogues  and  eavesdroppers,  and  from  the  holy 
servants  of  the  black  man.*  But  I  am  as  thirsty  as  a  hound :  give  me  some 
wine." 

*  Certain  church  officers,  who  reported  disturbances  to  the  pustor,  disrespectfully  culled  ''the 
black  man"  by  the  godless  bailiff. 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  59 

His  wife  brought  some. 

And  Christian  said :  "  Is  that  of  the  kind  the  barber's  dog  laps  up  ?" 

Bailiff.     "  Yes,  indeed,  I  'm  likely  to  be  such  a  fool  again !" 

Chris.     "But  what  devil's  scheme  had  you  in  your  head?  " 

Bailiff.  "  By  G — ,  none !  It  was  mere  folly.  I  had  eaten  nothing,  and  did 
not  like  to  drink." 

Chris.     "Whistle  that  to  a  dog;  perhaps  it  may  believe  you  :  not  I." 

Bailiff.     "Why  not?" 

Chris.  "Why  not?  Because  the  wine  we  were  drinking  smelt  of  sulphur 
like  the  plague." 

Bailiff.     "  Who  says  so  ?  " 

Chris.  "I,  Mr.  Urias!  I  said  nothing  of  it  at  the  time;  but  when  I  car- 
ried home  the  empty  jug,  it  reeked  in  my  nose  so  that  it  almost  knocked  me 
down.  All  things  considered,  you  have  certainly  had  some  scheme  in  your 
head  to-day." 

Bailiff.  "  I  know  no  more  than  the  child  in  the  cradle  what  wine  my  wife 
sent.  Thou  art  a  fool  with  thy  fancies." 

Chris.  "Ay,  but  you  know,  well  enough,  what  a  fine  sermon  you  made  on 
the  rights  of  the  land.  I  suppose  you  said  all  that  with  as  little  meaning  as  a 
man  has  when  he  takes  a  pinch  of  snuff." 

Bailiff.  "Hold  thy  foolish  tongue,  Christian.  The  best  thing  I  could  do, 
would  be  to  have  thee  well  beaten  for  upsetting  my  jug.  But  I  must  know  now 
how  they  went  on  at  the  barber's  after  I  left  them." 

Chris.     "  And  your  promise,  bailiff." 

Bailiff.     "  What  promise  ?  " 

Chris.  "  That  I  should  have  wine  till  morning  for  nothing,  if  I  got  to  know 
it." 

Bailiff.    "  But  if  thou  knowest  nothing,  wouldst  thou  still  be  drinking  ?  " 

Chris.     "  If  I  know  nothing!     Send  for  the  wine,  and  you- shall  hear." 

The  bailiff  had  it  brought,  sat  down  by  him ;  then  Christian  told  him  all  he 
knew,  and  more  besides.  Sometimes  he  contradicted  himself  so  barefacedly, 
that  the  bailiff  perceived  it,  and  called  out :  "  You  dog,  do  'nt  lie  so  that  a 
man  can  take  hold  of  it  with  his  hands !  " 

"No,  by  G ,"  answered  Christian,  "as  true  as  I  am  a  sinner,  every  hair 

and  point  of  it  is  true." 

"Come,  come,"  said  the  bailiff,  who  by  this  time  had  had  enough,  "Shaben 
Michel  is  here,  and  I  must  speak  to  him ; "  and  he  then  went  to  the  other  table 
where  Michel  was  sitting,  slapped  him  on  the  shoulder,  and  said : 

CHAPTER  xxix. — CONTINUATION  OF  THE  CONVERSATION  OP  ROGUES  WITH  EACH 

OTHER. 

"ART  thou  also  amongst  the  sinners?  I  thought,  since  thou  wert  called  to 
the  church  building,  thou  hadst  become  a  saint ;  like  our  butcher,  because  he 
once  had  to  ring  a  week  for  the  sexton." 

Michel.  "  No,  bailiff !  My  calls  are  not  so  sudden ;  but,  when  I  once  begin, 
I  will  go  through  with  it." 

Bailiff.     "  I  should  like  to  be  thy  father  confessor,  Michel." 

Mich.     "  Nay,  I  can  not  consent  to  that." 

Bailiff.     "  Why  not  ?  " 

Mich.     "Because  thou  wouldst  double  my  score  with  thy  holy  chalk." 


60  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

Bailiff.     "  "Would  not  that  suit  thee  ?  " 

Mich.  "No,  bailiff!  I  must  have  a  father  confessor  who  will  forgive  and 
look  over  sins,  and  not  one  who  will  chalk  them  down  against  me!" 

Bailiff.     "  Well,  I  can  forgive  and  overlook  sins,  as  well  as  another  " 

Mich.     "  What !  sins  in  thy  books  ?  " 

Bailiff.  "Truly,  I  am  often  obliged  to  do  so;  and  it  is  better  people  should 
think  I  do  it  willingly." 

Mich.     "Is  that  possible,  Mr.  Bailiff  ?  " 

"We  shall  see,"  said  the  bailiff,  making  a  sign  to  him. 

They  went  together  to  the  little  table,  near  the  fire. 

And  the  bailiff  said :   "  It  is  well  thou  art  come ;  and  lucky  for  thee." 

Mich.     "I  have  great  need  of  luck." 

Bailiff.  "So  I  suppose;  but  if  thou  art  willing,  thou  canst  not  fail  to  make 
money  by  this  new  place." 

Mich.     "And  how  must  I  manage  it?  " 

Bailiff.  "  Thou  must  get  into  favor  with  the  mason,  and  seem  very  hun- 
gry and  poor." 

Mich.     "  I  can  do  that  without  lying." 

Bailiff.  "  Thou  must  also  often  give  thy  supper  to  thy  children,  that  people 
may  think  thy  heart  is  as  soft  as  melted  butter ;  and  thy  children  must  run 
after  thee  bare-footed  and  bare-legged." 

Mich.     "There  is  no  difficulty  in  that  either." 

Bailiff.  "  And  when  thou  art  the  favorite  of  all  the  ten,  then  comes  the  true 
work." 

Mich.     "What  is  that  to  be?" 

Bailiff.  "To  do  all  that  thou  canst  to  make  quarrels  and  misunderstandings 
about  the  building;  to  throw  things  into  confusion,  and  to  make  mischief  between 
the  laborers  and  their  masters  and  the*  squire." 

Mich.     "  There  will  be  more  difficulty  in  that  part  of  the  business." 

Bailiff.     "  But  it  is  a  part  by  which  thou  mayst  get  money." 

Mich.  "Ay,  if  it  were  not  for  the  hope  of  that,  a  cunning  man  might  give 
such  a  direction,  but  only  a  fool  would  follow  it." 

Bailiff.     "  It  is  a  matter  of  course,  that  thou  wilt  get  money  by  it." 

Mich.  "Two  crowns  in  hand,  Mr.  Bailiff.  I  must  have  so  much  paid  down, 
or  I  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  it." 

Bailiff.  "  Thou  art  more  unconscionable  every  day,  Michel.  I  show  thee 
how  thou  mayst  get  wages  for  nothing,  and  thou  wouldst  have  me  also  pay  thee 
for  taking  my  good  advice." 

Mich.  "  What  is  all  that  to  the  purpose  ?  Thou  wilt  have  me  play  the  rogue 
in  thy  service,  and  so  I  will,  and  be  true  and  hearty  in  it ;  but  payment  in  hand, 
that  is  two  crowns,  and  not  a  kreutzer  less,  I  must  have,  or  thou  mayst  do  it 
thyself." 

Bailiff.  "Thou  dog!  thou  knowest  well  enough  how  to  get  thy  own  way. 
There  are  thy  two  crowns  for  thee." 

Mich.  "Now  it  is  all  right,  master !  thou  hast  nothing  to  do  but  to  give  thy 
orders." 

Bailiff.  "I  think  thou  mayst  easily  by  night  break  down  some  of  the  scaf- 
folding, and  knock  out  a  couple  of  the  windows ;  and  of  course  thou  wilt  make 
away  with  ropes  and  tools,  and  such  light  things  as  are  lying  around." 

Mich.     "Naturally." 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  Cl 

Bailiff.  "  And  it  would  be  no  very  difficult  affair  to  carry  some  of  the  timber 
over  the  hill  to  the  river,  and  send  it  back  again  toward  Holland." 

Mich.  "  No,  no !  I  can  manage  that.  I  will  hang  a  great  white  shirt  upon 
a  pole,  in  the  middle  of  the  churchyard,  that  if  the  watchman,  or  any  of  the  old 
women  in  the  neighborhood  hear  a  noise,  they  may  fancy  it  is  a  ghost,  and  keep 
away  from  me." 

Bailiff.     "  Thou  art  a  rascally  heretic.     "What  a  scheme !  " 

Mich.     "  I  will  do  so,  however ;  it  may  serve  to  keep  me  from  the  pillory." 

Bailiff.  "  Well,  but  there  is  another  thing.  If  thou  canst  find  any  drawings, 
or  calculations,  or  plans  of  the  squire's,  lying  about,  thou  must  quietly  put  them 
out  of  the  way,  where  nobody  would  think  of  looking  for  them,  and  at  night 
mend  thy  fire  with  them." 

Mich.  *  "Very  well,  Mr.  Bailiff." 

Bailiff.  "  And  thou  must  contrive  so  as  to  make  thy  honorable  comrades  in- 
clined to  be  merry,  and  work  idly,  and  particularly  when  the  squire  or  any  body 
from  the  hall  comes  down,  and  then  thou  canst  wink,  as  much  as  to  say :  You 
see  how  it  is." 

Mich.  "  "Well,  I  will  do  what  I  can.  I  see  plainly  enough  what  thou  art 
after." 

Bailiff.  "But,  of  all  things,  the  most  important  is,  that  thou  and  I  should  be 
enemies." 

Mich.     "Very  true." 

Bailiff.  "  "We  will  begin  directly.  There  may  be  tell-tales  here,  who  will 
talk  of  how  we  held  counsel  secretly  together." 

Mich.     "  Thou  art  right." 

Bailiff.  "  Drink  another  glass  or  two,  and  I  will  pretend  as  if  I  would  reckon 
with  thee,  and  thou  wouldst  not  agree.  I  will  make  a  noise  about  it,  thou 
must  abuse  me,  and  we  will  thrust  thee  out  of  the  house." 

Mich.  "  "Well  thought  of."  He  drank  what  was  in  the  pitcher,  and  then  said 
to  the  bailiff,  "  Come,  begin." 

The  bailiff  muttered  something  about  reckoning,  and  then  said  aloud :  "  I 
never  received  the  florin." 

Mich.     "  Recollect  yourself,  bailiff!  " 

Bailiff.  "By  heaven,  I  know  nothing  of  it!  "Wife I  didst  thou  receive  a 
florin  last  week  from  Michel? " 

Wife.     "  Heaven  bless  us !  not  a  kreutzer." 

Bailiff.  "It  is  very  strange.  Give  me  the  book!"  She  brought  it,  and  the 
bailiff  read:  "Here  it  is — Monday — nothing  from  thee.  Tuesday — nothing. 
"Wednesday — Didst  thou  say  it  was  on  "Wednesday  ?  " 

Mich.     "  Yes !  " 

Bailiff.  "Here  is  Wednesday — look!  there  is  nothing  from  thee — and  on 
Thursday,  Friday,  and  Saturday — not  a  syllable  of  the  florin." 

Mii'h.     "The  devil!  I  tell  you  I  paid  it." 

Bailiff.     "Softly,  softly,  good  neighbor — I  write  down  everything." 

Mich.     "  What  the  deuce  is  your  writing  to  me,  bailiff?     I  paid  the  florin." 

Bailiff.     "  It  is  not  true,  Michel." 

Mich.     "  Here's  a  rogue,  to  say  I  have  not  paid  him  1 " 

Bailiff.     "  What  dost  thou  say,  thou  unhanged  rascal  ?  " 

Some  of  the  countrymen  got  up : — "  He  has  given  the  bailiff  the  lie,  we  heard 
him." 


62  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

Mich.     "  No,  I  did  not.     But  I  paid  the  florin." 

Men.  ""What  dost  thou  say,  thou  knave,  that  thou  didst  not  give  him  the 
lie  ?  We  all  heard  it." 

Bailiff.     "  Turn  the  dog  out  of  the  room." 

Michel  took  up  a  knife,  and  called  out:  "Let  any  one  who  touches  me  look 
to  it." 

Bailiff.     "  Take  the  knife  away  from  him." 

They  took  the  knife  from  him,  turned  him  out  of  the  room,  and  sat  down 
again. 

Bailiff.     "  It 's  well  he  is  gone.     He  was  only  a  spy  of  the  mason's." 

Countrymen.     "By  G ,  so  he  was.     "We  are  well  rid  of  him." 

CHAPTER  xxx. — CONTINUATION  OP  THE  CONVERSATION  OF  ROGUES  WITH  EACH 

OTHER,   IN   A   DIFFERENT   STYLE. 

BRING  us  some  more  wine.  Bailiff!  we  will  drink  on  the  strength  of  the 
harvest,  and  let  you  have  one  sheaf  out  of  every  ten  for  a  measure  of  wine. 

Bailiff.     "  You  will  not  pay  me  soon,  then." 

Countrymen.     "No;  but  you  will  have  heavier  weight  for  that." 

The  bailiff  sat  down  with  them,  and  drank  to  their  hearts'  content,  on  the 
strength  of  the  future  tithe. 

Now  their  mouths  were  opened,  and  there  arose  from  all  the  tables  a  wild  up- 
roar of  oaths  and  curses,  of  dissolute,  idle  talk,  of  abuse  and  insolence.  They 
told  stories  of  licentiousness  and  theft,  of  blows  and  insults,  of  debts  they  had 
cunningly  escaped  paying,  of  lawsuits  they  had  won  by  clever  tricks,  of  wicked- 
ness and  riots,  which  for  the  most  part  were  false ;  but,  alas !  too  much  was 
true.  How  they  had  stolen  from  the  old  squire's  woods,  and  fields,  and  tithes — 
and  how  their  wives  whined  over  their  children — how  one  took  up  a  prayer- 
book,  and  another  hid  the  jug  of  wine  in  the  chaff  and  straw.  Also  of  their 
boys  and  girls, — how  one  helped  his  father  to  cheat  his  mother,  and  another  took 
part  with  the  mother  against  the  father — and  how  they  had  all  done  as  much  or 
more  when  they  were  lads.  Then  they  got  to  talking  about  old  Uli,  who  had 
been  caught  in  such  fool's  talk,  and  cruelly  brought  to  the  gallows ;  but  how  he 
had  prayed  at  last  and  made  a  holy  end  of  it.  And  how,  when  he  had  confess- 
ed, (though,  as  every  body  knew,  but  half,)  still  the  hard-hearted  pastor  had  not 
saved  his  life. 

They  were  in  the  midst  of  this  history  of  the  pastor's  cruelty,  when  the  bailiff's 
wife  beckoned  him  to  come  out.  "  Wait  till  we  have  finished  the  story  of  the 
hanged  man,"  was  his  answer. 

But  she  whispered  in  his  ear:   "Joseph  is  come." 

He  replied:  "Hide  him  somewhere,  and  I  will  come  soon." 

Joseph  had  crept  into  the  kitchen ;  but  there  were  so  many  people  in  the 
house,  that  the  bailiff's  wife  was  afraid  of  his  being  seen.  She  put  out  the  light, 
and  said  to  him :  "  Joseph !  take  off  thy  shoes,  and  come  after  me  into  the  lower 
room.  My  husband  will  be  with  thee  directly." 

Joseph  took  his  shoes  in  his  hand,  and  followed  her  on  tip-toe  into  the  lower 
room. 

He  had  not  waited  long,  before  the  bailiff  came  to  him,  and  said:  "What  dost 
thou  want  so  late,  Joseph  ?" 

Joseph.  "Not  much!  I  only  want  to  tell  you  I  have  ordered  all  about  the 
stone." 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  (53 

Bailiff.     "  I  am  glad  of  it,  Joseph." 

Joseph.  "  The  master  was  talking  to-day  of  the  wall,  and  said  that  the  flint 
stone,  hard  by,  was  very  good — but  I  told  him  he  was  a  fool,  and  did  not  know 
his  own  business ;  and  that  the  wall  would  look  much  handsomer,  and  more 
polished,  of  Schwendi  stone.  He  answered  not  a  word ;  and  I  went  on  to  say 
that,  if  he  did  not  use  Schwendi  stone,  it  would  be  a  loss  to  him." 

Bailiff.     "  Did  he  resolve  upon  it  ?  " 

Joseph.     "Yes,  he  did,  immediately.     "We  are  to  begin  with  it  on  Monday." 

Bailiff.     "  The  day-laborers  are  all  going  to  the  hall  on  Monday." 

Joseph.  "  Tit ey  will  be  back  by  noon,  and  busy  with  the  stun0  in  the  lime. 
It  is  as  g-ood  as  mixed." 

Bailiff.  "That  is  all  right  and  well;  if  it  were  only  begun — thy  money  is 
ready  for  thee,  Joseph." 

Joseph.     "I  am  in  great  want  of  it  just  now,  bailiff." 

Bailiff.  "  Come  on  Monday,  when  you  have  begun  with  the  quarry.  It  is  put 
aside  for  thee." 

Joseph.     "Do  you  suppose  I  shall  not  keep  my  word?  " 

Bailiff.     "Nay,  I  can  trust  thee,  Joseph." 

Joseph.  "  Then  give  me  three  crowns  of  it,  now.  I  should  like  to  get  my 
new  boots,  at  the  shoemaker's,  for  to-morrow ;  it  is  my  birth-day,  and  I  dare 
not  ask  the  master  for  any  money." 

Bailiff.     "  I  can  not  well  give  it  thee  now ;  come  on  Monday  evening." 

Joseph.  "  I  see  how  you  trust  me.  It 's  one  thing  to  promise,  and  another 
to  perform.  I  thought  I  could  depend  upon  the  money,  bailiff." 

Bailiff.     "  On  my  soul  thou  shalt  have  it." 

Joseph.     "  Ay,  I  see  how  it  is." 

Bailiff.     "It  will  be  time  enough,  on  Monday." 

Joseph.  "Bailiff!  you  show  me,  plainly  enough,  that  you  do  not  trust  me: 
and  I  will  make  bold  to  tell  you,  that  I  fear,  if  the  quarry  is  once  opened,  you 
will  not  keep  your  word  with  me." 

Bailiff.  "  This  is  too  bad,  Joseph !  I  shall  most  certainly  keep  my  word  with 
thee." 

Joseph.     "  I  do  not  believe  it.     If  you  will  not  give  it  me  now;  it  is  all  over." 

Bailiff.     "  Canst  thou  not  manage  with  two  crowns?  " 

Jose}ih.  "No!  I  must  have  three;  but  then  you  may  depend  upon  having 
every  thing  done." 

Bailiff.     "Well,  I  will  give  thee  them:  but  thou  must  keep  thy  word." 

Joseph.  "If  I  do  not,  I  give  you  leave  to  call  me  the  greatest  rogue  and 
thief  upon  the  earth." 

The  bailiff  now  called  his  wife  and  said :  "  Give  Joseph  three  crowns." 

His  wife  took  him  aside  and  said:   "Do  not  let  him  have  them." 

Bailiff.     "  Do  as  I  bid  thee,  without  a  word." 

Wife.     "  Be  not  so  foolish !     Thou  art  in  liquor  and  wilt  repent  to-morrow." 

Bailiff.  "Answer  me  not  a  word.  Three  crowns  this  moment !  Dost  thou 
hear  what  I  say?'' 

His  wife  sighed,  reached  the  money,  and  threw  it  to  the  bailiff.  He  gave  it 
to  Joseph,  and  said :  "  Thou  wilt  not,  surely,  deceive  me." 

"Heaven  forbid!  what  dost  thou  take  me  for,  bailiff?"  answered  Joseph. 
And  he  went  away,  counted  over  his  three  crowns,  and  said  to  himself:  "  Now 
I  have  my  reward  in  my  own  hands,  and  it  is  safer  there  than  in  the  bailiff's 


04  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

chest.  He  is  an  old  rogue,  and  I  will  not  be  his  fool.  The  master  may  now 
take  flint  or  blue  stone  for  me." 

The  bailiff's  wife  cried  for  vexation,  over  the  kitchen  fire,  and  did  not  go  again 
into  the  room,  till  past  midnight. 

The  bailiff'  too,  as  soon  as  Joseph  was  gone,  had  a  foreboding  that  he  had 
overreached  himself,  but  he  soon  forgot  it  again,  amongst  his  companions.  The 
riot  of  the  drinkers  lasted  till  after  midnight. 

At  last  the  bailiff's  wife  came  out  of  the  kitchen,  into  the  room,  and  said :  "  It 
is  time  to  break  up  now ;  it  is  past  midnight,  and  Easter  Sunday." 

"Easter  Sunday  1"  said  the  fellows,  stretched  themselves,  yawned,  and  got  up, 
one  after  the  other. 

They  tottered  and  stumbled  along,  catching  hold  of  the  tables  and  walls,  and 
went  with  difficulty  home  again. 

"Go,  one  at  once,  and  make  no  noise,"  said  the  wife,  "or  the  pastor  and  his 
people  will  get  hold  of  you,  and  make  you  pay  the  fine." 

"  Nay,  we  had  better  keep  our  money  for  drinking,"  answered  the  men.  And 
the  wife  added :  "If  you  see  the  watchman,  tell  him  there  is  a  glass  of  wine 
and  a  piece  of  bread  for  him  here." 

They  had  scarcely  got  out  of  the  house  when  the  watchman  appeared  before 
the  alehouse  windows,  and  called  out : 

"All  good  people  hear  my  warning, 
'Tis  one  o'clock,  and  n  cloudy  morning." 

The  bailiff's  wife  understood  his  call,  and  brought  him  the  wine,  and  bade 
him  not  to  tell  the  pastor  how  late  they  had  been  up. 

And  now  she  helped  her  sleepy,  drunken  husband  off  with  his  shoes  and 
stockings. 

And  she  grumbled  about  Joseph's  crowns,  and  her  husband's  foolishness. 
But  he  slept  and  snored,  and  took  notice  of  nothing.  And  at  last  they  both  fell 
asleep,  on  the  holy  evening  before  Easter. 

And  now,  thank  God,  I  have  no  more  to  relate  about  them,  for  some  time. 

I  return  to  Leonard  and  Gertrude. 

What  a  world  is  this !  A  garden  lies  near  a  dog-kennel,  and  in  the  same 
field  an  offensive  dunghill  and  sweet  nourishing  grass.  Yes,  it  is  indeed  a  won- 
derful world  1  The  beautiful  pasture  itself,  without  the  manure  which  we  throw 
upon  it,  could  not  produce  such  delicious  herbage. 

CHAPTER  xxxi. — THE  EVENING  BEFORE  A  SABBATH  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  A  GOOD 

MOTHER. 

GERTRUDE  was  now  alone  with  her  children.  The  events  of  the  week  and 
the  approach  of  the  Sabbath  filled  her  heart. 

Thoughtfully  and  silently  she  prepared  the  supper,  and  took  out  of  the  chest 
her  husband's,  her  children's,  and  her  own  Sunday  clothes,  that  nothing  might 
distract  her  attention  in  the  morning.  And  when  she  had  arranged  everything, 
she  sat  down  at  the  table  with  her  children. 

It  was  her  custom  every  Saturday,  when  the  time  for  evening  prayer  came,  to 
impress  upon  their  hearts  the  recollection  of  their  various  failings,  and  of  all  the 
events  of  the  week  which  might  be  of  consequence  to  them. 

And  this  day  she  was  particularly  alive  to  the  goodness  of  God  toward  them 
throughout  the  week,  and  wished  to  fix  it  as  deeply  as  possible  upon  their  young 
hearts,  that  they  might  never  forget  it. 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  55 

The  children  sat  around  her,  folded  their  little  hands  for  prayer,  and  their 
mother  thus  addressed  them : — 

"  I  have  something  very  good  to  tell  you,  my  children !  Tour  dear  father  has 
got  some  very  good  work  this  week,  by  which  he  will  be  able  to  earn  much 
more  than  usual ;  and  we  may  venture  to  hope  that  we  shall  in  future  have  our 
daily  bread  with  less  care  and  anxiety. 

"Thank  your  heavenly  father,  my  children,  for  his  mercy  to  us,  and  do  not 
forget  the  former  times,  when  I  had  to  be  sparing  of  every  mouthful  of  bread. 
It  was  often  a  great  trouble  to  me,  not  to  be  able  to  give  you  enough,  but  God 
Almighty  knew  that  he  would  help  us  in  his  own  good  time,  and  that  it  was 
better  for  you,  my  darlings,  to  be  brought  up  in  poverty,  in  patience,  and  in  the 
habit  of  overcoming  your  desires,  than  in  abundance.  It  is  very  difficult  for 
people,  who  have  all  they  wish  for,  not  to  become  thoughtless  and  forgetful  of 
God,  and  unmindful  of  what  is  for  their  real  good.  Remember  then,  my  chil- 
dren, as  long  as  you  live,  the  want  and  care  you  have  undergone ;  and  when 
you  are  yourselves  better  off,  think  of  those  who  suffer  as  you  have  suffered. 
Never  forget  what  it  is  to  feel  hunger  and  want,  that  you  may  be  tender-hearted 
to  the  poor,  and  willingly  give  them  all  you  have  to  spare.  Do  you  think  you 
shall  be  willing  to  give  it  to  them,  my  children?"  "0  yes,  mother,  that  wo 
shall!  "  said  all  the  children. 

CHAPTER  xxxn. — THE  HAPPINESS  OP  THE  HOUR  OF  PRAYER. 

Mother.     "Nicholas,  who  dost  thou  think  suffers  most  from  hunger?  " 

Nicholas.  "Rudeli,  mother!  you  were  at  his  father's  yesterday.  He  must 
be  almost  dying  of  hunger,  for  he  eats  grass  off  the  ground." 

Mother.  "Shouldst  thou  like  sometimes  to  give  him  thy  afternoon's 
bread?" 

Nich.     "0  yes,  mother!  may  I  give  it  him  to-morrow?" 

Mother.     "Yes,  thou  may st." 

Nich.     "I  am  glad  of  it." 

Mother.     "And  thou,  Lise!  to  whom  wilt  thou  sometimes  give  thy  piece?" 

Lise.     "  I  can  not  tell,  just  now,  whom  I  shall  like  best  to  give  it  to." 

Mother.     "  Dost  thou  not  recollect  any  poor  child  who  is  very  hungry?  " 

Lise.     "  0  yes,  mother." 

Mother.  "  Then  why  canst  thou  not  tell  to  whom  thou  wilt  give  it  ?  thou  art 
always  so  overwise,  Lise." 

Lise.     "  I  know  now,  mother." 

Mother.     "Who  is  it?" 

Lise.  "  Marx  Reuti's  daughter,  Betheli.  I  saw  her  picking  up  rotten  potatoes, 
from  the  bailiff's  dunghill,  to-day." 

Nich.  "  Yes,  mother,  and  I  saw  her  too ;  and  felt  in  all  my  pockets,  but  I  had 
not  a  mouthful  of  bread  left.  If  I  had  only  kept  it  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
longer! " 

The  mother  then  asked  the  other  children  the  same  questions,  and  they  were 
all  glad  in  their  hearts  to  think  that  they  should  give  their  bread  to  the  poor 
children  to-morrow. 

The  mother  let  them  enjoy  this  pleasure  a  while  longer.  Then  she  said  to 
them:  "That  is  enough,  children  1  think  how  good  the  squire  has  been  to  make 
you  each  a  present." 

"  0  yes,  our  pretty  money !     Will  you  show  it  us,  now,  mother  ?  " 

20 


QQ  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

"By  and  by,  after  prayer,"  said  the  mother;  and  the  children  jumped  about 

for  joy." 

CHAPTER  xxxiu. — THE  SERIOUSNESS  OF  THE  HOUR  OF  PRAYER. 
"  You  are  noisy,  my  children,"  said  the  mother.  "  When  any  thing  good  hap- 
pens to  you,  think  of  God,  who  gives  us  all  things.  If  you  do  so,  you  will 
never  be  wild  and  riotous  hi  your  joy.  I  am  very  glad  to  rejoice  with  you,  my 
darlings,  but  when  people  are  wild  and  riotous  in  their  joy,  they  lose  the  serenity 
and  peace  of  their  hearts ;  and,  without  a  quiet,  tranquil  heart,  there  is  no  true 
happiness.  Therefore  must  we  keep  God  ever  in  view.  This  is  the  use  of  the 
hour  for  morning  and  evening  prayer,  that  you  may  never  forget  him.  For  who- 
ever is  praying  to  God,  or  thinking  of  him,  can  neither  be  extravagant  in  joy, 
nor  without  comfort  in  sorrow.  But  then,  my  children,  he  must  always  endeavor, 
particularly  when  he  is  praying,  to  keep  himself  quiet  and  untroubled.  Con- 
sider, whenever  you  thank  your  father  for  any  thing  sincerely,  you  are  not  noisy 
and  riotous.  You  fall  softly,  and  with  few  words,  on  his  neck ;  and  when  you 
feel  it  really  in  your  hearts,  the  tears  come  into  your  eyes.  It  is  the  same 
toward  God.  If  his  loving  kindness  really  rejoices  you,  and  your  hearts  are 
truly  thankful,  you  will  not  make  a  great  noise  and  talking  about  it — but  the 
tears  will  come  into  your  eyes,  when  you  think  how  merciful  he  is  toward  you. 
Thus  all  that  fills  your  hearts  with  gratitude  to  God  and  kindness  to  men,  is  a 
continual  prayer ;  and  whoever  prays  as  he  ought,  will  do  what  is  right,  and 
will  be  dear  to  God  and  man,  as  long  as  he  lives." 

Nicholas.  "And,  mother,  you  said,  yesterday,  that  we  should  be  dear  to  the 
gracious  squire,  if  we  did  what  was  right." 

Mother.  "  Yes,  my.  children,  he  is  a  good  and  religious  gentleman.  May  God 
reward  him,  for  all  he  has  done  for  us.  I  wish  thou  mayst  become  dear  to  him, 
Nicholas!" 

Nich.  "  I  will  obey  him,  because  he  is  so  good,  as  I  obey  you  and  my 
father." 

Mother.  " That  is  right,  Nicholas!  always  think  so,  and  thou  wilt  certainly 
become  dear  to  him." 

Nich.     "If  I  durst  but  speak  a  word  to  him !  " 

Mother.     "  "What  wouldst  thou  say  to  him  ?  " 

Nich.     "  I  would  thank  him  for  the  pretty  money." 

Anneli.     "  Durst  you  thank  him  ?  " 

Nich.     "Why  not?" 

Anneli.     "I  durst  not." 

Use.     "  Nor  I !  " 

Mother.     "  Why  durst  you  not,  children  ?  " 

Lise.     "  I  should  laugh." 

Mother.  "  Why  wouldst  thou  laugh,  Lise,  and  so  show  him,  plainly,  that  thou 
wert  but  a  silly  child?  If  thou  hadst  not  many  foolish  fancies  in  thy  head,, thou 
wouldst  never  think  of  doing  such  a  thing." 

Anneli.     "  I  should  not  laugh ;  but  I  should  be  sadly  frightened." 

Mother.  "He  would  take  thee  by  the  hand,  Anneli,  and  smile  upon  thee,  as 
thy  father  does  when  he  is  very  kind  to  thee,  and  then  thou  wouldst  not  be 
frightened  any  longer." 

Anneli.     "  No,  not  then." 

Jonas.     "Nor  I,  then." 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  g7 

CHAPTER  xxxiv. — A  MOTHER'S  INSTRUCTION. 

Motlier.  "  But,  my  dear  children,  how  have  you  gone  on,  as  to  behavior,  this 
week?" 

The  children  looked  at  each  other,  without  speaking. 

Mother.     "Anneli,  hast  thou  done  what  was  right  this  week?" 

Anneli.     "No,  mother,  you  know  I  did  not  do  right  about  little  brother." 

Mother.  "Anneli,  some  misfortune  might  have  happened  to  him.  There  have 
been  children  suffocated  with  being  left  in  that  way.  And  how  wouldst  thou 
like,  thyself,  to  be  shut  up  in  a  room,  and  left  to  hunger,  and  thirst,  and  cry 
alone  ?  Besides,  little  children,  when  they  are  left  long  without  any  body  to 
help  them,  get  into  a  passion,  and  scream  so  dreadfully,  that  it  may  do  them  a 
mischief  as  long  as  they  live.  Anneli  1  God  knows,  I  could  not  have  a  moment's 
peace  out  of  the  house,  if  I  had  reason  to  be  afraid  that  thou  wouldst  not  take 
proper  care  of  the  child." 

Anneli.     "Indeed,  mother,  I  will  not  go  away  from  him  any  more." 

Mother.  "  I  do  trust  thou  wilt  never  put  me  into  such  a  fright  again.  And 
Nicholas,  how  hast  thou  gone  on  this  last  week  ?  " 

Nicholas.     "  I  do  n't  know  of  any  thing  wrong." 

Mother.     "Hast  thou  forgotten  knocking  over  thy  little  sister  on  Monday? " 

Nich.     "  I  did  not  do  it  on  purpose,  mother." 

Mother.  "  If  thou  hadst  done  it  on  purpose,  it  would  have  been  bad  indeed. 
Art  thou  not  ashamed  of  talking  so  ?  " 

Nick.     "I  am  sorry  I  did  it,  mother;  and  will  not  do  so  again." 

Mother.  "When  thou  art  grown  up,  if  thou  takest  no  more  heed  of  what  is 
near  thee  and  about  thee,  thou  will  have  to  learn  it  to  thy  cost.  Even  amongst 
boys,  those  who  are  so  heedless  are  always  getting  into  scrapes  and  disputes ; 
and  I  am  afraid,  my  dear  Nicholas,  that  thy  carelessness  will  bring  thee  into 
great  trouble  and  difficulties." 

Nich.     "I  will  take  pains  to  be  more  thoughtful,  mother." 

Mother.  "  Do  so,  my  dear  boy,  or,  believe  me,  thou  wilt  often  be  very  un- 
happy." 

Nich.  "My  dear  mother,  I  know  it,  and  am  sure  of  it,  and  I  will  certainly 
take  heed." 

Mother.     "And  thou,  Lise,  how  hast  thou  gone  on  ?  " 

Lise.     "I  know  of  nothing  at  all  this  week,  mother." 

Mother.     "Art  thou  sure  ?  " 

Lise.  "  I  can  not  now  think  of  any  thing,  mother ;  or  I  am  sure  I  would 
willingly  tell  you  of  it." 

Mother.  "Thou  hast  always,  even  when  thou  knowest  nothing,  as  many 
words  to  utter  as  if  thou  hadst  a  great  deal  to  say." 

Lise.     "  What  have  I  been  saying  now,  mother? " 

Mother.  "  Nothing  at  all,  and  yet  many  words.  It  is  in  this  way,  as  we  have 
told  thee  a  thousand  times,  that  thou  art  foolish.  Thou  dost  not  think  about 
any  thing  thou  hast  to  say,  and  yet  must  always  be  talking.  What  need  was 
there  for  thee  to  tell  the  bailiff,  yesterday,  that  we  knew  that  Arner  was  coming 
soon  ?  " 

Lise.     "  I  am  sorry  I  did  so,  mother." 

Mother.  "We  have  so  often  told  thee  not  to  talk  of  what  does  not  concern 
thee,  particularly  before  strangers,  and  yet  thou  dost  so  still.  Suppose  thy  father 


68  LEONARD  AND  GERTRDDE. 

had  been  afraid  of  telling  him  that  he  knew  it  before,  and  thy  prating  had 
brought  him  into  trouble." 

Lise.  "I  should  have  been  very  sorry,  but  neither  of  you  had  said  a  word 
that  it  was  to  be  a  secret." 

Mother.  "Well,  I  will  tell  thy  father,  when  he  comes  home,  that  whenever 
we  are  talking  to  each  other  in  the  room,  we  must  add,  after  every  sentence : 
'Lise  may  tell  this  to  the  neighbors,  or  at  the  well — but  not  this — nor  this — but 
again  she  may — and  then  thou  wilt  know  what  thou  mayst  chatter  about.' " 

Lise.     "Forgive  me,  mother,  I  did  not  mean  it  so." 

Mother.  "We  have  told  thee  repeatedly,  that  thou  must  not  talk  about  what 
does  not  concern  thee ;  but  it  is  useless.  We  can  not  cure  thee  of  this  failing, 
but  by  treating  it  seriously ;  and  the  first  time  that  I  find  thee  again  chattering 
so  thoughtlessly,  I  will  punish  thee  with  the  rod." 

The  tears  came  into  Lise's  eyes  when  her  mother  talked  of  the  rod.  The 
mother  saw  them,  and  said  to  her:  "  Lise,  the  greatest  misfortunes  often  happen 
from  thoughtless  chattering,  and  thou  must  be  cured  of  this  fault." 

In  this  manner  she  spoke  to  them  all,  even  to  the  little  one ;  "  Thou  must  not 
call  out  so  impatiently  for  thy  supper  any  more,  or  I  shall  make  thee  wait  longer 
the  next  time ;  or,  perhaps,  give  it  to  one  of  the  others." 

When  this  was  all  over,  the  children  said  their  usual  evening  prayer,  and  after- 
ward the  Saturday  prayer,  which  Gertrude  had  taught  them,  and  which  was  as 
follows : — 

CHAPTER  xxxv. — A  SATURDAY.  EVENING  PRAYER. 

"HEAVENLY  Father!  thou  art  ever  kind  to  the  children  of  men,  and  thou  art 
kind  also  to  us.  Thou  suppliest  our  daily  wants.  All  comes  from  thee.  Our 
bread,  and  all  that  we  receive  from  our  parents,  thou  hast  first  bestowed  upon 
them,  and  they  willingly  give  it  to  us.  They  rejoice  in  all  which  thou  enables! 
them  to  do  for  us,  and  bid  us  be  thankful  unto  thee  for  it.  They  tell  us  that  if 
they  had  not  learned  to  know  and  love  thee,  they  should  not  so  love  us ;  and 
that  if  they  were  unmindful  of  thee,  they  should  do  much  less  for  us.  They  bid 
us  be  thankful  to  the  Saviour  of  men,  that  they  have  learned  to  know  and  love 
thee ;  and  they  teach  us  that  those  who  do  not  know  and  love  him,  and  follow 
all  the  holy  laws  which  he  has  given  to  men,  can  neither  so  well  love  thee,  nor 
bring  up  their  children  so  piously  and  carefully  as  those  who  believe  in  the 
Saviour.  Our  parents  teach  us  many  things  of  Jesus,  the  Messiah ;  what  great 
things  he  did  for  the  children  of  men ;  how  he  passed  his  life  in  suffering  and 
distress,  and  at  last  died  upon  the  cross,  that  he  might  make  men  happy  in  time 
and  eternity;  how  God  raised  him  again  from  the  dead;  and  how  he  now  sits 
at  the  right  hand  of  the  throne  of  God  his  Father,  in  the  glory  of  heaven,  and 
still  loves  all  the  children  of  men,  and  seeks  to  make  them  blessed  and  happy. 
It  goes  to  our  hearts  when  we  hear  of  our  blessed  Saviour.  0,  may  we  learn  so 
to  live  as  to  obtain  favor  in  his  sight,  and  at  last  be  received  unto  him  in  heaven. 

"Almighty  Father  1  we  poor  children,  who  here  pray  together,  are  brothers  and 
sisters ;  therefore  may  we  always  love  one  another,  and  never  hurt  each  other, 
but  be  kind  and  good  to  each  other  whenever  we  have  the  opportunity.  May 
we  carefully  watch  over  the  little  ones,  that  our  dear  parents  may  follow  their 
work  and  earn  their  bread,  without  anxiety.  It  is  all  we  can  do,  to  help  them 
for  the  trouble  and  care  they  have  had  on  our  account.  Reward  them,  0, 
heavenly  Father,  for  all  they  have  done  for  us ;  and  may  we  be  obedient  to 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  QQ 

them  in  all  which  they  require  from  us,  that  they  may  love  us  to  the  end  of 
their  lives,  and  be  rewarded  for  all  the  faithful  kindness  they  have  shown  us. 

"  0,  Almighty  God  1  may  we,  on  the  approaching  Sabbath,  be  truly  mindful  of 
all  thy  goodness,  and  of  the  love  of  Christ  Jesus ;  and  also  of  all  that  our  dear 
parents  and  friends  do  for  us,  that  we  may  be  thankful  and  obedient  to  God  and 
man,  and  walk  before  thee  in  love  all  the  days  of  our  lives." 

Here  Nicholas  paused,  and  Gertrude  added,  with  reference  to  the  events  of 
the  week :  "  "We  thank  thee,  Heavenly  Father,  that  thou  hast  this  week  relieved 
our  dear  parents  from  their  anxious  care  for  our  nourishment  and  support,  and 
given  unto  our  father  a  good  and  profitable  employment.  We  thank  thee  that 
our  chief  magistrate  is,  with  a  truly  parental  heart,  our  protector  and  our  help 
in  ail  misfortunes  and  distress.  We  thank  thee  for  the  goodness  of  the  lord  of 
the  manor.  If  it  be  thy  will,  may  we  grow  up  to  serve  and  please  him,  who  is 
to  us  as  a  father." 

Then  Lize  repeated  after  her :  "  Forgive  me,  0,  my  God,  my  besetting  fault, 
and  teach  me  to  bridle  my  tongue ;  to  be  silent  when  I  ought  not  to  speak,  and 
carefully  and  thoughtfully  to  answer  the  questions  I  am  asked." 

And  Nicholas :  "  Guard  me  in  future,  0,  Heavenly  Father,  from  my  hasti- 
ness ;  and  teach  me  to  give  heed  to  what  I  am  doing,  and  to  those  who  are 
near  me." 

And  Anneli :  "  I  repent,  0  my  God,  that  I  so  thoughtlessly  left  my  little 
brother,  and  alarmed  my  dear  mother.  May  I  do  so  no  more." 

Then  the  mother  said,  further : 

"Lord!  hear  us! 

"Father,  forgive  us! 

"  Christ  have  mercy  upon  us ! 

Then  Nicholas  repeated  the  Lord's  prayer. 

And  Enne  added :  "May  God  bless  our  dear  father,  and  mother,  and  brothers, 
and  sisters,  and  our  kind  benefactor,  and  all  good  men." 

And  Lise:  "In  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the 
Holy  Ghost." 

Mother.  "May  God  be  with  you,  and  keep  you!  May  he  lift  up  the  light 
of  his  countenance  upon  you,  and  be  merciful  to  you  for  everl  " 

The  children  and  their  mother  remained  for  a  time  hi  that  stillness,  which 
must  always  succeed  a  prayer  from  the  heart. 

CHAPTER  xxxvi. — PURE  DEVOTION  AND  LIFTING  UP  OF  THE  SOUL  TO  GOD. 

LISE  broke  this  silence:  "Now  will  you  show  us  our  presents,"  said  she  to 
her  mother. 

"  Yes,  I  will,"  replied  the  mother.  "  But  Lize,  thou  art  always  the  first  to 
speak." 

Nicholas  jumped  from  his  seat,  rushed  past  his  little  sister,  to  be  nearer  the 
light,  that  he  might  see  the  monej^  and,  in  so  doing,  pushed  the  child  so  that  it 
cried  out. 

Then  said  the  mother :  "  Nicholas,  this  is  not  right.  It  is  not  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  since  thou  gavest  thy  promise  to  be  more  careful,  and  now  thou  art  doing 
the  same  thing  again." 

Nicholas.     "  0,  mother,  I  am  very  sorry.     I  will  never  do  so  again.'' 

Mother.  "  So  thou  saidst  just  now  before  God,  and  yet  thou  dost  it  again. 
Thou  art  not  in  real  earnest." 


70  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

Nich.  "  0,  indeed,  mother,  I  am  in  earnest.  Forgive  me  I  I  am,  indeed,  in 
earnest,  and  very  sorry." 

Mother.  "  And  so  am  I,  Nicholas ;  but  thou  wilt  forget  again  if  I  do  not 
punish  thee.  Thou  must  go  without  supper  to  bed.  As  she  spoke,  she  led  the 
boy  away  from  the  other  children  into  his  room.  His  sisters  stood  all  sorrow- 
fully around.  They  were  troubled,  because  Nicholas  might  not  eat  with 
them." 

"Why  will  you  not  let  me  teach  you  by  kindness  alone,  my  children,"  said 
the  mother. 

"0,  let  him  be  with  us  this  once,"  said  the  children. 

"No,  my  loves,  he  must  be  cured  of  his  carelessness,"  said  the  mother. 

"  Then  do  not  let  us  see  the  presents  till  to-morrow,  when  he  can  look  at  them 
with  us,"  said  Anneli. 

Mother.     "That  is  right,  Anneli.     Yes,  he  may  see  them  with  you  then." 

Then  she  gave  the  children  their  supper,. and  went  with  them  into  their  room, 
where  Nicholas  was  still  weeping. 

"Take  care,  another  time,  my  dearest  boy,"  said  his  mother  to  him. 

Nicholas.  "  Only  forgive  me,  my  dear,  dear  mother.  Only  forgive  me  and 
kisrj  me,  and  I  will  willingly  go  without  supper. 

Then  Gertrude  kissed  her  son,  and  a  warm  tear  fell  upon  his  cheek,  as  she 
said  to  him :  "  0,  Nicholas,  Nicholas,  be  careful  I "  Nicholas  threw  his  arms 
around  his  mother's  neck  and  said :  "  My  dear  mother,  forgive  me." 

Gertrude  then  blessed  her  children,  and  went  again  into  her  room. 

She  was  now  quite  alone.  A  little  lamp  burnt  faintly  in  the  room,  her  heart 
was  devoutly  still ;  and  the  stillness  was  a  prayer  which,  without  words,  moved 
her  inmost  spirit.  A  feeling  of  the  presence  of  God,  and  of  his  goodness ;  a 
feeling  of  hope  of  an  eternal  life,  and  of  the  inward  happiness  of  the  man  who 
puts  his  trust  and  confidence  in  his  Almighty  Father ;  all  this  filled  her  soul 
with  deep  emotion,  so  that  she  sunk  upon  her  knees,  and  a  flood  of  tears  rolled 
down  her  cheeks. 

Blessed  are  the  tears  of  the  child,  when,  touched  by  a  father's  goodness,  he 
looks  sobbing  back  upon  the  past,  dries  his  eyes,  and  seeks  to  recover  himself, 
before  he  can  stammer  out  the  thankfulness  of  his  heart.  Blessed  were  the 
tears  of  Nicholas,  which  he  wept  at  this  moment,  because  he  had  displeased  his 
good  mother,  who  was  so  dear  to  him. 

Blessed  are  the  tears  of  all  who  weep  from  a  pure  child-like  heart. 

The  Lord  of  heaven  looks  down  upon  the  sobbing  forth  of  their  gratitude, 
and  upon  the  tears  of  their  eyes,  when  they  spring  from  affection. 

He  saw  the  tears  of  Gertrude,  and  heard  the  sobbing  of  her  heart ;  and  the 
offering  of  her  thanks  was  an  acceptable  sacrifice  to  him  ;  Gertrude  wept  long 
before  the  Lord  her  God,  and  her  eyes  were  still  moist  when  her  husband 
came  home. 

"  "Why  dost  thou  weep,  Gertrude  ?  thy  eyes  are  red  and  full  of  tears !  "Why 
dost  thou  weep  to-day,  Gertrude  ?  " 

Gertrude  answered :  "  My  dear  husband,  these  are  not  tears  of  sorrow: — be 
not  afraid.  I  wished  to  thank  God  for  this  week,  and  my  heart  was  so  full  that 
I  fell  upon  my  knees  ;  I  could  not  speak  for  weeping,  and  yet  it  seemed  to  me 
as  if  I  had  never  so  thanked  God  before." 

"  0,  my  love,"  answered  Leonard,  "  I  wish  I  could  so  quickly  lift  up  my  soul, 
and  pour  forth  my  heart  in  tears.  It  is  now  my  firm  resolution  to  do  what  is 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  7l 

right,  arid  to  be  just  and  thankful  toward  God  and  man ;  but  I  shall  never  be 
able  to  fall  upon  my  knees  thus  and  shed  tears." 

Gertrude.  "If  thou  art  only  earnestly  resolved  to  do  what  is  right,  all  the 
rest  is  of  little  consequence.  One  has  a  weak  voice  and  another  a  strong  one, 
but  that  signifies  little.  It  is  only  the  use  to  which  they  are  applied,  which  is 
of  importance.  My  dear  husband,  tears  are  nothing,  and  bended  knees  are 
nothing; 'but  the  resolution 'to  do  justly,  and  be  thankful  toward  God  and  man 
is  every  thing.  That  one  man  is  more  easily  affected  and  another  less  so,  is  of 
no  more  consequence  than  that  one  worm  crawls  through  the  earth  more  easily 
than  another.  If  thou  art  only  hi  earnest,  my  love,  thou  art  sure  to  find  him 
who  is  the  father  of  all  men." 

Leonard,  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  let  his  head  fall  upon  her  neck,  and  she  leaned 
her  face  over  his,  with  melancholy  tenderness. 

They  remained  thus  for  a  while,  still  and  deeply  affected,  and  were  silent. 

At  last  Gertrude  said :  "  Wilt  thou  not  eat  to-night?  " 

"I  can  not,"  answered  he,  "my  heart  is  too  full.  I  can  not  eat  any  thing  at 
present."  "  Nor  can  I,  my  love,"  said  she  ;  "  but. I  '11  tell  thee  what  we  will  do. 
I  will  take  the  food  to  poor  Eudi.  His  mother  died  to-day." 

CHAPTER  xxxvu. — KINDNESS  TOWARD  A  POOR  MAN. 

Leonard.     "Is  she  then  at  last  freed  from  her  misery?  " 

Gertrude.  "Yes,  God  be  praised!  But  thou  shouldst  have  seen  her  die,  my 
dear  husband.  Only  think !  she  found  out  on  the  day  of  her  death  that  Rudeli 
had  stolen  potatoes  from  us.  She  sent  the  boy  and  his  father  to  me,  to  ask  for- 
giveness. She  desired  them  earnestly  to  beg  us,  hi  her  name,  to  forgive  her, 
because  she  could  not  pay  back  the  potatoes;  and  poor  Rudi  promised  so 
heartily  to  make  it  up  by  working  for  thee.  Think,  my  dear  husband,  how  all 
this  affected  me.  I  went  to  the  dying  woman,  but  I  can  not  tell  thee,  it  is  im- 
possible to  describe,  with  what  a  melancholy  dying  tone  she  asked  me  whether 
I  had  forgiven  them ;  and  when  she  saw  that  my  heart  was  touched,  how  she 
recommended  her  children  to  me ;  how  she  delayed  it  to  the  last  moment,  and 
then,  when  she  found  she  was  going,  how  she  at  last  ventured,  and  with  what 
humility  and  love  toward  her  children,  she  did  it ;  and  how  in  the  midst  of  it 
she  expired.  0,  it  is  not  to  be  told  or  described." 

Leon.     "  I  will  go  with  thee  to  them." 

Ger.     "  Yes,  come,  let  us  go." 

So  saying,  she  took  up  the  broth,  and  they  went. 

"When  they  arrived,  Rudi  was  sitting  on  the  bed  by  the  corpse.  He  wept 
and  sighed,  and  his  little  boy  called  out  from  the  other  room,  and  asked  him  for 
bread — or  even  raw  roots— -or  any  thing  at  all. 

"Alas!  I  have  nothing  whatever.  For  God's  sake,  be  quiet  till  morning.  I 
have  nothing,"  said  the  father. 

And  the  little  fellow  cried  out :  "  But  I  am  so  hungry,  father,  I  can  not  go  to 
sleep !  0,  I  am  so  hungry,  father!  " 

Leonard  and  Gertrude  heard  this,  opened  the  door,  set  down  the  food  before 
the  hungry  child  and  said  to  him,  "Eat  quickly,  before  it  is  cold." 

"0,  God!"  exclaimed  Rudi,  "What  is  this?  Rudeli,  these  are  the  people 
from  whom  thou  hast  stolen  potatoes ;  and,  alas,  I  myself  have  eaten  of 
them ! " 

Ger.     "  Say  no  more  about  that,  Rudi." 


72  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

Rudi.  "  I  dare  not  look  you  in  the  face,  it  goes  so  to  my  heart  to  think  what 
we  did." 

Leon.     "  Eat  something,  Eudi." 
Rudeli.     "  Eat,  eat ;  let  us  eat,  father." 
Rudi.     "  Say  the  grace  then." 

Rudeli. 

"May  God  feed, 
And  God  speed 
All  the  poor 
On  the  earth's  floor, 
In  body  and  soul,  Amen  !  " 

Thus  prayed  the  boy,  took  up  the  spoon,  trembled,  wept,  and  ate. 

"May  God  reward  you  for  it  a  thousand  fold,"  said  the  father;  and  he  ate 
also,  and  tears  fell  down  his  cheeks. 

But  they  did  not  eat  it  all,  but  set  aside  a  plate  full  for  the  children  who  were 
asleep.  Then  Rudeli  gave  thanks. 

"When  we  have  fed, 
Let 's  thank  the  Lord, 
Who  all  our  bread 
Doth  still  afford. 

To  him  be  praise,  honor,  and  thanksgiving, 
Now  and  forever,  Amen." 


LEONARD  AND   GERTRUDE. 


CHAPTER  xxxvm. — THE  PURE  AND  PEACEFUL  GREATNESS  OP  A  BENEVOLENT 

HEART. 

As  Rudi  was  about  to  thank  them  again,  he  sighed  involuntarily. 

"Dost  thou  want  something,  Rudi?  If  it  is  any  thing  we  can  do  for  thee, 
tell  us,"  said  Leonard  to  him. 

"No,  I  want  nothing  more,  I  thank  you,"  answered  Rudi. 

But  he  evidently  repressed  a  deep  sigh,  which  struggled  to  escape  from  his 
heart.  Leonard  and  Gertrude  looked  at  him  with  sorrowful  sympathy,  and  said : 
"But  thou  sighest,  and  we  see  that  thy  heart  is  troubled  about  something." 

"Tell  them,  tell  them,  father,"  said  the  boy,  "they  are  so  kind." 

"Do  tell  us,  if  we  can  help  thee,"  said  Leonard  and  Gertrude. 

"Dare  I  venture?"  answered  the  poor  man.  "I  have  neither  shoes  nor 
stockings,  and  to-morrow  I  must  follow  my  mother  to  her  grave,  and  the  day 
after  go  to  the  hall." 

Leonard.  "To  think  that  thou  shouldst  fret  thyself  thus  about  it!  "Why 
didst  thou  not  tell  me  directly  ?  I  can  and  will  willingly  give  thee  them." 

Rudi.  "And  wilt  thou  believe,  after  what  has  happened,  that  I  will  return 
them  safe  and  with  thanks  ?  " 

Leon.  "Say  nothing  of  that,  Rudi.  I  would  trust  thee  for  more  than  that; 
but  thy  misery  and  want  have  made  thee  too  fearful." 

Gertrude.  "  Yes,  Rudi,  trust  in  God  and  man,  and  thou  wilt  be  easier  in  thy 
heart,  and  better  able  to  help  thyself  in  all  situations." 

Rudi.  "Yes,  Gertrude,  I  ought  to  have  more  trust  hi  my  father  hi  heaven; 
and  I.  can  never  sufficiently  thank  you." 

Leon.     "  Say  nothing  of  that,  Rudi." 

Ger.     "  I  should  like  to  see  thy  mother  again." 

They  went  with  a  feeble  lamp  to  her  bedside ;  and  Gertrude,  Leonard,  Rudi, 
and  the  little  one,  all  with  tears  in  their  eyes,  looked  at  her  awhile,  in  the  deep- 
est silence ;  then  they  covered  her  up  again,  and  kindly  took  leave  of  each 
other,  almost  without  words. 

As  they  went  home,  Leonard  said  to  Gertrude:  ""What  a  dreadful  state  of 
wretchedness  this  is  I  Not  to  be  able  to  go  any  longer  to  church,  nor  to  ask  for 
work,  nor  return  thanks  for  it,  because  a  man  has  neither  clothes,  nor  shoes, 
nor  stockings." 

Ger.  "  If  he  were  suffering  it  from  any  fault  of  his  own,  it  would  almost 
drive  him  to  despair." 

Leon.  "Yes,  Gertrude,  he  would  despair,  he  certainly  would  despair,  Ger- 
trude. If  I  were  to  hear  my  children  cry  out  in  that  way  for  bread,  and  had 
none,  and  it  was  my  own  fault,  Gertrude,  I  should  despair;  and  I  was  on  the 
road  to  this  wretchedness." 

Ger.     "  We  have  indeed  been  saved  out  of  great  danger." 

As  they  thus  spoke,  they  passed  near  the  tavern,  and  the  unmeaning  riot  of 
drinking  and  talking  reached  their  ears.  Leonard's  heart  beat  at  a  distance,  but, 


74  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

as  he  drew  near,  he  shuddered  with  painful  horror.  Gertrude  looked  at  him 
tenderly  and  sorrowfully,  and  Leonard,  ashamed,  answered  the  mournful  look  of 
his  Gertrude  and  said:  "0  what  a  blessed  evening  have  I  spent  with  thee! 
and  if  I  had  been  here  instead!" 

Gertrude's  sadness  now  increased  to  tears,  and  she  raised  her  eyes  to  heaven. 
He  saw  it.  Tears  stood  also  in  his  eyes,  and  the  same  sadness  was  upon  his 
countenance.  He,  too,  raised  his  eyes  to  heaven,  and  both  gazed  for  a  time 
upon  the  beautiful  sky.  They  looked  with  admiration  upon  the  silvery  bright- 
ness of  the  moon ;  and  a  rapturous  inward  satisfaction  assured  them  that  the 
pure  and  innocent  feelings  of  then*  hearts  were  acceptable  in  the  sight  of  God. 

After  this  short  delay,  they  went  into  their  cottage. 

Gertrude  immediately  sought  out  shoes  and  stockings  for  Rudi,  and  Leonard 
took  them  to  him  that  evening. 

"When  he  came  back,  they  said  a  preparation  prayer  for  the  sacrament  of  the 
next  day,  and  fell  asleep  with  devout  thankfulness. 

In  the  morning  they  arose  early,  and  rejoiced  in  the  Lord ;  read  the  history 
of  the  Saviour's  sufferings,  and  of  the  institution  of  the  holy  supper;  and 
praised  God  in  the  early  hours,  before  the  Sabbath  sun  arose. 

Then  they  awoke  their  children,  waited  for  them  to  say  their  morning  prayer, 
and  then  went  to  church. 

A  quarter  of  an  hour  before  service-time,  the  bailiff  also  arose.  He  could  not 
find  the  key  of  his  clothes-chest ;  uttered  dreadful  curses ;  kicked  the  chest  open 
with  his  foot;  dressed  himself;  went  to  church;  placed  himself  in  the  first  seat 
in  the  choir ;  held  his  hat  before  his  mouth ;  and  looked  into  every  corner  of  the 
church,  whilst  he  repeated  his  prayer  under  his  hat. 

Soon  afterward  the  pastor  entered.  Then  the  people  sang  two  verses  of  the 
hymn  for  Passion  week:  " 0  man,  repent  thy  heavy  sins,"  and  so  on. 

Then  the  pastor  went  into  the  pulpit ;  and  this  day  he  preached  and  instructed 
his  people  as  follows : — 

CHAPTER  xxxix. — A  SERMON. 

"MY  children! 

"  He  who  fears  the  Lord,  and  walks  piously  and  uprightly  before  him,  walks 
in  light. 

"But  he  who  in  all  his  doings  is  forgetful  of  his  God,  walks  in  darkness. 

"  Therefore  be  ye  not  deceived,  one  only  is  good,  and  he  is  your  Father. 

""Wherefore  do  you  run  astray,  and  grope  about  in  darkness?  No  one  is  your 
Father  but  God. 

"  Beware  of  men,  lest  ye  learn  from  them  what  will  be  displeasing  in  the 
sight  of  your  Father  in  heaven. 

"  Happy  is  the  man  who  has  God  for  his  Father. 

"  Happy  is  the  man  who  fears  wickedness  and  hates  deceitfulness:  for  they 
who  commit  wickedness  shall  not  prosper,  and  the  deceitful  man  is  taken  in  his 
own  snare. 

"The  man  shall  not  prosper,  who  oppresses  and  injures  his  neighbor. 

"The  man  shall  not  prosper,  against  whom  the  cry  of  the  poor  man  rises 
toward  God. 

"  "Woe  to  the  wretch  who  in  the  winter  feeds  the  poor,  and  in  the  harvest 
takes  from  him  double. 

""Woe  to  the  godless  man  who  causes  the  poor  to  drink  wine  in  the  summer, 
and  in  the  autumn  requires  from  him  double. 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  75 

"Woe  to  him,  when  he  takes  away  from  the  poor  man  his  straw  and  his  fodder, 
so  that  he  can  not  till  his  ground. 

"Woe  to  him,  by  the  hardness  of  whose  heart  the  children  of  the  poor  want 
bread. 

"Woe  to  the  godless  man,  who  lends  money  to  the  poor  that  they  may  become 
his  servants,  be  at  his  command,  work  without  wages,  and  yet  pay  rent. 

"Woe  to  him,  when  they  give  false  testimony  for  him  before  the  judge,  and 
swear  false  oaths  that  his  cause  is  just. 

"  Woe  to  him,  when  he  assembles  sinners  in  his  house,  and  watches  with 
them  to  betray  the  just  man,  that  he  may  become  as  one  of  them,  and  forget  his 
God,  his  wife,  and  his  children,  and  waste,  with  them,  the  wages  of  his  labor, 
upon  which  his  wife  and  children  depend. 

"And  woe  to  the  miserable  man,  who  suffers  himself  to  be  led  astray  by  the 
ungodly,  and,  in  his  thoughtlessness,  squanders  the  money  which  is  wanted  at 
home. 

"  Woe  to  him,  when  the  sighs  of  his  wife  arise  to  God,  because  she  has  no 
food  for  her  infant. 

"  Woe  to  him,  when  his  child  starves,  that  he  may  drink. 

"Woe  to  him,  when  she  weeps  over  the  wants  of  her  children,  and  her  own 
excessive  labor. 

"  Woe  to  him,  who  wastes  the  apprentice-fee  of  his  sons ;  when  his  old  age 
comes,  they  will  say  unto  him,  '  Thou  didst  not  behave  as  a  father  to  us,  thou 
didst  not  teach  us  to  earn  bread,  how  can  we  now  help  thee  ? ' 

"  Woe  to  those,  who  go  about  telling  lies,  and  make  the  crooked  straight,  and 
the  straight  crooked :  for  they  shall  come  to  shame. 

"  Woe  to  you,  when  ye  have  bought  the  land  of  the  widow,  and  the  house 
of  the  orphan,  at  an  unfair  price.  Woe  to  you,  for  this  is  your  Lord ;  father  of 
the  widow  and  of  the  orphan,  and  they  are  dear  to  him ;  and  ye  are  a  hatred  and 
an  abomination  in  his  sight,  because  ye  are  cruel  and  hard  to  the  poor. 

"  Woe  to  you,  whose  houses  are  full  of  what  does  not  belong  to  you. 

"  Though  you  riot  in  wine  which  came  from  the  poor  man's  vines: 

"  Though  you  laugh,  when  starved  and  miserable  men  shake  their  corn  into 
your  sacks  with  sighs : 

"  Though  you  sneer  and  jest  when  the  oppressed  man  writhes  like  a  worm 
before  you,  and  entreats  you,  in  God's  name,  to  lend  him  a  tenth  part  of  what 
you  have  cheated  him  of;  though  you  harden  yourselves  against  all  this,  yet 
have  you  never  an  hour's  peace  in  your  hearts. 

"No!  there  lives  not  the  man  upon  God's  earth,  who  oppresses  the  poor  and 
is  happy. 

"  Though  he  be  raised  out  of  all  danger,  out  of  all  fear  of  iniquity  or  punish- 
ment, on  this  earth ;  though  he  be  a  ruler  in  the  land,  and  imprison  with  his 
hand,  and  accuse  with  his  tongue,  miserable  men  who  are  better  than 
himself: 

"  Though  he  sit  aloft,  and  judge  them  to  life  or  death,  and  sentence  them  to 
the  sword,  or  the  wheel: 

"  He  is  more  miserable  than  they ! 

"  He  who  oppresses  the  poor  man  from  pride,  and  lays  snares  for  the  unfortu- 
nate, and  swears  away  widows'  houses ;  he  is  worse  than  the  thief  and  the 
murderer,  whose  reward  is  death. 


76  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

"  Therefore,  has  the  man  who  does  these  things  no  peaceful  hour,  throughout 
his  life. 

"  He  wanders  on  the  face  of  the  earth  laden  with  the  curse  of  a  brother's 
murder,  which  leaves  no  rest  for  his  heart. 

"  He  wanders  around,  and  seeks,  and  tries  continually  to  conceal  from  himself 
the  horror  of  his  inward  thoughts. 

"  With  eating  and  drinking,  with  insolence  and  malice,  with  hatred  and  strife, 
with  lies  and  deceit,  with  buffoonery  and  licentiousness,  with  slander  and  abuse, 
with  quarreling  and  backbiting,  he  seeks  to  get  through  the  time  which  is  a 
burthen  to  him. 

"  But  he  will  not  always  be  able  to  suppress  the  voice  of  his  conscience ;  he 
will  not  always  be  able  to  escape  the  fear  of  the  Lord ;  it  will  fall  upon  him  like 
an  armed  man,  and  you  will  see  him  tremble  and  be  dismayed,  like  a  prisoner 
whom  death  threatens. 

"But  happy  is  the  man  who  has  no  part  in  such  doings. 

"Happy  is  the  man  who  is  not  answerable  for  the  poverty  of  his  neighbor. 

"  Happy  is  the  man  who  has  nothing  in  his  possession  which  he  has  forced 
from  the  poor. 

"Happy  are  you,  when  your  mouth  is  pure  from  harsh  words,  and  your  eyes 
from  harsh  looks. 

"Happy  are  you,  when  the  poor  man  blesses  you,  and  when  the  widow  and 
the  orphan  weep  tears  of  gratitude  to  God  for  you. 

"Happy  is  the  man  who  walks  in  love  before  his  God,  and  before  his  people. 

"  Happy  are  you  who  are  pious ;  come  and  rejoice  at  the  table  of  the  God  of 
love. 

"  The  Lord  your  God  is  your  Father. 

"  The  signs  of  love  from  his  hands  will  refresh  your  spirits,  and  the  blessed- 
ness of  your  souls  will  increase,  because  your  love  toward  God  your  Father,  and 
toward  your  brethren  of  mankind,  will  increase  and  strengthen. 

"But  ye  who  walk  without  love,  and  in  your  deeds  consider  not  that  God  is 
your  Father,  and  that  your  neighbors  are  the  children  of  your  God,  and  that 
the  poor  man  is  your  brother ;  ye  ungodly,  what  do  ye  here  ?  ye,  who  to-morrow 
will  injure  and  oppress  the  poor  as  ye  did  yesterday,  what  do  ye  here  ?  Will  ye 
eat  of  the  bread  of  the  Lord,  and  drink  of  his  cup,  and  say  that  ye  are  one  in 
body,  and  mind,  and  soul,  with  your  brethren  ? 

"Leave  this  house,  and  avoid  the  meal  of  love. 

"And  ye  poor  and  oppressed  ones  of  my  people,  believe  and  trust  in  the  Lord, 
and  the  fruit  of  your  affliction  and  suffering  will  become  a  blessing  to  you. 

"  Believe  and  trust  in  the  Lord  your  God,  and  fear  not  the  ungodly ;  but  keep 
37x>urselves  from  them.  Rather  suffer,  rather  endure  any  want,  rather  bear  any 
injury,  than  seek  help  from  their  hard-heartedness.  For  the  words  of  the  hard 
man  are  lies,  and  his  help  is  a  decoy  by  which  he  seeks  to  entrap  the  poor  man  and 
destroy  him.  Therefore  flee  from  the  ungodly  man  when  he  salutes  you  with 
smiles,  when  he  gives  you  his  hand,  and  takes  yours  with  friendliness.  When 
he  offers  you  his  assistance,  then  flee  from  him ;  for  the  ungodly  man  insnares 
the  poor.  Avoid  him,  and  join  not  yourselves  with  him ;  but  fear  him  not : — 
though  you  see  him  standing  fast  and  great,  like  a  lofty  oak,  fear  him  not ! 

"  Go,  my  children,  into  the  forest,  to  the  place  where  the  lofty  oaks  stand,  and 
see  how  the  little  trees,  which  withered  under  their  shade,  now  being  removed 
from  them,  flourish  and  bloom.  The  sun  shines  again  upon  the  young  plants, 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  fY 

the  dew  of  heaven  falls  upon  them  in  its  strength,  and  the  great  spreading  roots 
of  the  oaks,  which  sucked  up  all  the  nourishment  from  the  ground,  now  decay, 
and  nourish  the  young  trees  which  withered  in  the  shade. 

"  Therefore  hope  in  the  Lord,  for  his  help  never  fails  those  who  hope  in  him. 

"  The  day  of  the  Lord  will  come  to  the  ungodly  man ;  and  on  that  day,  when 
he  shall  see  the  oppressed  and  the  poor  man,  he  will  cry  out  and  say :  '  0,  that 
I  had  been  as  one  of  these!' 

"Therefore  trust  in  the  Lord,  ye  who  are  troubled  and  oppressed,  and  rejoice 
that  ye  know  the  Lord,  who  has  appointed  the  supper  of  love. 

"  For  through  love  ye  bear  the  sufferings  of  this  earth,  even  as  a  treasure  from 
the  Lord ;  and  your  burthens  only  increase  your  strength  and  your  blessed- 
ness. 

"Therefore  rejoice  that  ye  know  the  God  of  love;  for  without  love  ye  would 
sink  and  become  as  the  ungodly,  who  torment  and  betray  you. 

"Praise  the  God  of  love,  that  he  has  appointed  this  sacrament,  and  has  called 
you,  amongst  his  millions,  to  partake  in  his  holy  mysteries. 

"Praise  ye  the  Lord! 

"The  revelation  of  love  is  the  salvation  of  the  world. 

"Love  is  the  band  which  binds  the  earth  together. 

"Love  is  the  band  which  unites  God  and  man. 

"Without  love,  man  is  without  God;  and  without  God  and  love,  what  is 
man? 

"Dare  ye  say?  can  ye  utter  or  think  what  man  is  without  God,  and  without 
love? 

"I  dare  not;  I  can  not  express  it — man,  without  God  and  without  love,  is  no 
longer  a  man,  but  a  brute. 

"  Therefore  rejoice  that  ye  know  the  God  of  love,  who  has  called  the  world 
from  brutishness  to  love,  from  darkness  to  light,  and  from  death  to  eternal  life. 
Rejoice  that  ye  know  Jesus  Christ,  and  through  faith  in  him  are  called  to  bo 
children  of  God,  and  to  eternal  life. 

"And  yet  once  more  I  say  unto  you,  rejoice  that  ye  know  the  Lord ;  and  pray 
for  all  those  who  do  not  know  him ;  that  they  may  come  to  the  knowledge  of 
the  truth  and  of  your  joy. 

"  My  children,  come  to  the  holy  supper  of  your  Lord.     Amen." 

When  the  pastor  had  said  this,  and  instructed  his  congregation  for  nearly  an 
hour,  he  prayed  with  them,  and  then  the  whole  congregation  partook  of  the 
Lord's  supper. 

The  bailiff,  Hummel,  assisted  in  distributing  the  Lord's  supper ;  and  when  all 
the  people  had  given  thanks  unto  the  Lord,  they  sang  a  hymn,  and  the  pastor 
blessed  his  people,  and  every  one  returned  to  his  own  house. 
CHAPTER  XL. — A  PROOF  THAT  THE  SERMON  WAS  GOOD;   Item,  ON  KNOWLEDGE 

AND  ERROR,    AND  WHAT  IS  CALLED  OPPRESSING  THE  POOR. 

THE  bailiff,  Hummel,  was  furious  at  the  discourse  which  the  pastor  had  deliv- 
ered about  the  ungodly  man ;  and  on  the  Lord's  day,  which  the  whole  parish 
kept  holy,  he  raged,  and  swore,  and  abused  the  pastor,  and  said  many  violent 
things  against  him. 

As  soon  as  he  got  home  from  the  sacrament,  he  sent  for  his  dissolute  compan- 
ions to  come  to  him  directly.  They  soon  arrived,  and  joined  the  bailiff  in  say- 
ing many  shameful  and  abusive  things  of  the  pastor  and  his  Christian  discourse. 


78  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

The  bailiff  began  first:  "I  can  not  endure  his  damned  taunts  and  attacks." 

"It  is  not  right,  it  is  a  sin,  and  particularly  on  the  Sabbath  day,  it  is  a  sin  to 
do  so,"  said  old  Abi. 

Bailiff.  "The  rascal  knows  very  well  that  I  can  not  endure  it,  and  he  only 
goes  on  so  much  the  more.  It  will  be  a  fine  thing  for  him,  if  he  can  bring  the 
people,  by  his  preaching  and  his  abuse,  to  hate  and  despise  what  he  does  not 
understand,  and  has  nothing  to  do  with." 

Abi.  "  Ay,  indeed !  our  blessed  Saviour,  and  the  evangelists,  and  the  apos- 
tles in  the  New  Testament,  never  attacked  any  body." 

Christian.  "  Thou  canst  not  say  that.  They  did  attack  people,  and  still  more 
than  the  pastor  does." 

AM.     "It  is  not  true,  Christian." 

Chris.  "  Thou  art  a  fool,  Abi.  Ye  blind  guides,  ye  serpents. — ye  generation 
of  vipers,  and  a  thousand  such.  Thou  knowest  a  great  deal  about  the  Bible, 
Abi." 

Countryman,     "  Yes,  Abi !  they  certainly  did  attack  people." 

Chris.  "  They  did.  But  as  for  affairs  of  law,  which  they  did  not  understand, 
and  reckonings  which  had  been  settled  before  the  judges  according  to  law,  they 
did  not  meddle  with  them,  and  those  who  do  are  very  different  kind  of  people." 

Count.     "  Yes,  that  they  are." 

Chris.  "  They  must  be  very  different,  or  people  would  not  be  so  bold.  Only 
think  what  they  did.  There  was  one  Annas — yes,  Annas  was  his  name — and 
his  wife  after  him,  only  for  telling  one  lie,  they  fell  down  and  died." 

Count.     "  Die  they  indeed  ?    For  only  one  lie  ?  " 

Chris.     "  Yes,  as  true  as  I  am  alive,  and  standing  here." 

Abi.     "  It 's  a  fine  thing,  too,  to  know  one's  Bible." 

Chris.  "  I  have  to  thank  my  father,  who  is  dead  and  buried  for  it.  For  the 
rest  he  was,  God  forgive  him,  no  great  things.  He  ran  through  all  my  mother's 
property  to  the  last  farthing, — but  I  could  have  got  over  that,  if  he  had  not 
leagued  himself  so  much  with  Uli,  who  was  hanged.  Such  a  thing  as  that  in- 
jures children  and  children's  children.  But  he  could  read  his  Bible  as  well  as 
any  pastor,  and  made  us  all  learn  too.  He  would  not  excuse  one  of  us." 

Abi.  "I  have  often  wondered  how  he  could  be  so  good-for-nothing,  when 
he  knew  so  much." 

Count.     "  It  is  very  strange." 

Jost.  (A  stranger,  who  happened  to  be  in  the  tavern.)  "  I  can  not  help 
laughing,  neighbors,  at  your  wonder  about  it.  If  much  knowledge  could  make 
people  good,  your  attorneys,  and  brokers,  and  bailiffs,  and  magistrates,  with  re- 
spect be  it  spoken,  would  be  always  the  best." 

Count.     "Ay,  and  so  they  would,  neighbor." 

Jost.  "Depend  upon  it,  there  is  a  wide  difference  between  knowing  and 
doing.  He  who  is  for  carrying  on  his  business  by  knowledge  alone,  had  need 
take  care  lest  he  forget  how  to  act." 

Count.     "  Yes,  so  it  is.     A  man  soon  forgets  what  he  does  not  practice." 

Jost.  "Of  course.  "When  a  man  is  in  habits  of  idleness,  he  is  good  for 
nothing.  And  so  it  is  with  those  who,  from  idleness  and  weariness,  get  to  chat- 
tering and  talking.  They  become  good  for  nothing.  Only  attend,  and  you  will 
find  that  the  greatest  part  of  those  fellows  who  have  stories  out  of  the  Bible, 
or  the  newspapers,  and  new  and  old  pamphlets,  constantly  in  their  hands  and 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  ^9 

mouths,  are  little  better  than  mere  idlers.  If  one  wants  to  talk  with  them 
about  housekeeping,  bringing  up  children,  profit,  or  business,  when  they  should 
give  one  advice  how  to  set  about  this  thing  or  that,  which  is  of  real  use,  they 
stand  there  like  blockheads,  and  know  nothing,  and  can  tell  nothing.  Only 
where  people  meet,  for  idleness,  in  taverns,  and  at  dances,  and  gossipings  on  Sun- 
days and  holidays ;  there  they  show  off.  They  tell  of  quack  cures,  and  foolish 
stories  and  tales,  in  which  there  is  not  a  word  of  truth ;  and  yet  a  whole  room 
full  of  honest  folks  will  sit  listening  for  hours  to  such  a  prating  fellow,  who  tells 
them  one  lie  after  another." 

AM.  "  By  my  soul,  it  is  as  he  says !  and,  Christian,  he  has  drawn  thy  father 
to  the  life.  Just  so  we  went  on  with  him.  He  was  as  stupid  as  an  ox  about 
every  thing  relating  to  wood  and  fields,  cattle,  fodder,  ploughing,  and  such  like ; 
and  knew  no  more  about  his  own  business  than  a  sheep.  But  in  the  tavern,  and 
at  parish  meetings,  and  in  the  churchyard,  after  service,  he  spoke  like  a  wise 
man  from  the  East.  Sometimes  of  Doctor  Faustus,  sometimes  of  our  Saviour, 
sometimes  of  the  Witch  of  Endor,  or  of  the  one  of  Hirzau,  and  sometimes  of 
bull-fights  at  Maestricht,  or  of  horse-races  at  London.  Stupidly  as  he  did  it,  and 
evident  as  it  was  that  he  was  telling  them  lies,  people  went  on  willingly  listen- 
ing to  him,  till  he  was  near  being  hanged,  which  did  at  last  hurt  his  credit  as  a 
story-teller." 

Jost.     "It  was  high  time." 

Abi.  "Yes,  we  were  fools  long  enough;  and  gave  him  many  a  glass  of  wine 
for  pure  lies." 

Jost.  "  To  my  mind  it  would  have  been  better  for  him  if  you  had  never  given 
him  any." 

Abi.  "  Indeed,  I  believe  if  we  had  never  given  him  any,  he  would  not  have 
come  so  near  the  gallows.  He  would  have  been  obliged  to  work." 

Jost.     "  So  you  see  your  good  will  toward  him  did  him  an  injury." 

Count.     "  Yes,  that  it  did." 

Jost.  "  It  is  a  wicked  and  ruinous  thing  to  drag  the  Bible  into  such  idle  tell- 
ing and  hearing  of  profane  stories." 

Leupi.  "My  father  once  beat  me  soundly  for  forgetting,  over  one  of  these 
stories,  (I  think  it  was  out  of  the  Bible,)  to  fetch  the  cow  from  the  pasture." 

Jost.  "  He  was  in  the  right.  To  do  what  is  in  the  Bible  is  our  business,  and 
to  tell  us  about  it  is  the  pastor's.  The  Bible  is  a  command,  a  law ;  what  would 
the  governor  say  to  thee,  if  he  had  sent  a  command  down  to  the  village  that  we 
were  to  cart  something  to  the  castle,  and  thou,  instead  of  going  into  the  wood 
to  get  thy  load,  wert  to  seat  thyself  in  the  tavern,  take  up  the  order  in  thy 
hand,  read  it  aloud,  and,  whilst  thou  wert  sitting  over  thy  glass,  explain  to  thy 
neighbors  what  he  meant  and  wished  for  ?  " 

Abi.  "What  would  he  say  to  me?  He  would  abuse  me,  and  laugh  at  me, 
and  throw  mo  into  prison  for  taking  him  for  a  fool." 

Jost  "And  just  so  much  do  the  people  deserve,  who  read  the  Bible  from  mere 
idleness,  and  that  they  may  be  able  to  tell  stories  out  of  it  at  the  tavern." 

Chris.  "  Yes,  but  yet  we  must  read  in  it,  to  know  how  to  keep  in  the  right 
way." 

Jost.  "  Of  course.  But  those  who  are  always  stopping  at  every  resting-place, 
and  standing  still  to  talk  at  every  well,  and  finger-post,  and  cross,  which  is  put 
down  to  show  the  way,  are  not  those  who  will  get  on  the  fastest?  " 

Abi.     "But  how  is  this  neighbor?     They  say  one  can  not  pay  too  dear  for 


80  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

knowledge ;  but  it  seems  to  me  one  may  easily  pay  too  dear  for  knowledge  of 
many  things." 

Jost.  "Yes,  indeed!  "We  always  pay  too  dear  for  everything  which  keeps 
us  away  from  active  duties  and  business  of  importance.  "We  should  seek  to 
gain  information  that  we  may  know  how  to  act,  and  if  people  try  to  know  many 
things,  merely  for  the  sake  of  talking  about  them,  they  will  certainly  avail  them 
nothing. 

"It  is,  with  respect  to  knowledge  and  performance,  as  it  is  in  a  trade.  A  shoe- 
maker, for  instance,  must  work,  that  is  the  first  thing ;  he  must  also  be  able  to 
judge  of  leather  and  know  how  to  buy  it ;  this  is  the  means  by  which  he  can 
carry  on  his  trade  to  advantage ;  and  so  it  is  in  every  thing  else.  Execution 
and  practice  are  the  chief  things  for  all  men ;  knowledge  and  understanding  are 
the  means  by  which  they  can  carry  on  their  business  to  advantage. 

"  But  for  this  purpose  the  knowledge  of  every  man  should  relate  to  what  he  has 
to  do  and  perform,  or  in  other  words  to  his  chief  business." 

AU.  "  Now  I  begin  to  see  how  it  is.  "When  a  man  has  his  head  full  of  vari- 
ous and  foreign  aifairs,  he  does  not  give  his  mind  to  his  own  business,  and  to 
what  is  of  the  most  importance  to  him." 

Jost.  "Just  so.  The  thoughts  and  understanding  of  every  man  should  be 
intent  upon  the  things  which  are  of  the  greatest  consequence  to  him.  I  have  no 
meadows  to  be  cultivated  by  irrigation,  therefore  it  is  nothing  to  me  how  people 
manage  to  overflow  them ;  and,  till  I  have  a  wood  of  my  own,  I  shall  certainly 
take  no  pains  to  know  how  it  may  be  best  taken  care  of.  But  my  reservoirs 
for  manure  are  often  in  my  thoughts,  because  they  make  my  poor  meadows  rich. 
Every  thing  would  prosper,  if  every  body  were  properly  attentive  to  his  own 
affair.  People  get  plenty  of  knowledge,  soon  enough,  if  they  only  learn  to 
know  things  well;  but  they  never  learn  to  know  them  well,  if  they  do  not  begin 
by  knowing,  and  looking  alter  what  belongs  to  them.  Knowledge  rises  by  de- 
grees from  the  lowest  thing  to  the  highest,  and  we  shall  make  great  progress  in 
our  lives,  if  we  begin  thus ;  but  from  idle  talking,  and  stories,  and  foolish  dreams 
of  things  in  the  clouds,  or  in  the  moon,  people  learn  only  to  become  good  for 
nothing." 

Abi.     "They  begin  to  learn  that,  even  at  school." 

During  the  whole  of  this  conversation,  the  bailiff  stood  by  the  fire,  stared  into 
it,  warmed  himself,  scarcely  listened  to  any  thing,  and  joined  seldom,  and  with- 
out any  connection,  in  what  they  were  saying.  He  forgot  the  wine  in  his  ab- 
straction, and  therefore  it  was  that  the  conversation  between  Abi  and  the 
stranger  had  lasted  so  long.  Perhaps,  too,  he  was  not  willing  to  express  his 
vexation  till  the  stranger  had  finished  his  glass  and  left  them. 

Then  at  last  he  began  all  at  once,  as  if,  during  his  long  silence,  he  had  been 
learning  it  off  by  heart. 

"  The  pastor  is  always  talking  about  oppressing  the  poor.  If  what  he  calls  op- 
pressing the  poor  were  done  by  nobody,  the  devil  take  me  if  there  would  be  any 
poor  in  the  world.  But  when  I  look  around  me,  from  the  prince  to  the  night- 
watchman,  from  the  first  council  in  the  land  to  the  lowest  parish  meeting,  every 
one  seeks  his  own  profit,  and  presses  against  whatever  comes  in  his  way.  The 
late  pastor  sold  wine,  as  I  do,  and  took  hay,  and  corn,  and  oats,  in  payment  for 
it,  as  much  as  I  do.  Throughout  the  world  every  one  oppresses  his  inferiors, 
and  I  am  obliged  to  submit  to  oppression  in  my  turn.  Whoever  has  any  thing, 
or  wishes  to  have  any  thing,  must  oppress,  or  he  will  lose  what  is  his  own,  and 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  gj 

become  a  beggar.  If  the  pastor  knew  the  poor  as  well  as  I  do,  he  would  not 
trouble  himself  so  much  about  them ;  but  it  is  not  for  the  sake  of  the  poor.  All 
he  wants  is  to  find  fault,  and  lead  the  people  to  judge  one  another  wrongfully. 
The  poor  are  a  good-for-nothing  set :  if  I  wanted  ten  rogues  I  could  soon  find 
eleven  amongst  the  poor.  I  wish  people  would  bring  me  my  income  regularly 
home  every  quarter-day,  I  would  soon  learn  to  receive  it  piously  and  devoutly. 
But  in  my  business,  in  a  tavern  and  in  poor  cottages,  where  every  farthing  must 
be  forced  out,  and  one  is  plagued  at  every  turn,  it  is  a  very  different  thing.  I 
would  lay  a  wager  that  any  landlord,  who  would  act  considerately  and  com- 
passionately toward  day-laborers  and  poor  people,  would  soon  lose  all  he  had. 
They  are  rogues  every  one." 

Thus  spoke  the  bailiff,  and  perverted  the  voice  of  his  conscience,  which  made 
him  uneasy,  and  told  him  that  the  pastor  was  right,  and  that  he  was  the  man 
who  oppressed  all  the  poor  of  the  village,  even  until  the  blood  started  under 
their  nails. 

But,  however  he  reasoned  to  himself,  he  was  not  at  rest.  Anxiety  and  care 
visibly  tormented  him.  He  paced  uneasily  up  and  down  the  room. 

At  last  he  said:  "I  am  so  angry  about  the  pastor's  sermon,  that  I  know  not 
what  to  do,  and  I  am  not  well.  Are  you  cold,  neighbors  ?  I  have  been  as  cold 
as  ice,  ever  since  I  came  home." 

"No,"  answered  the  neighbors,  "it  is  not  cold;  but  every  body  saw  at 
church  that  thou  wert  not  well,  thou  wert  so  deadly  pale." 

Bailiff.  "  Did  every  body  see  it  at  church  ?  I  was  indeed  strangely  ill ! — I 
am  very  feverish — and  so  faint — I  must  drink  something.  We  will  go  into  the 
back  room,  during  service-time." 

CHAPTER  ZLI. — A  CHURCHWARDEN  INFORMS  THE  PASTOR  OF  IMPROPER  CONDUCT. 

BUT  a  churchwarden,  who  lived  in  the  same  street  with  the  bailiff,  and  had 
seen  Abi,  Christian,  and  the  other  fellows  go  into  the  tavern,  between  the  ser- 
vices, was  angry  in  his  heart,  and  thought  at  that  moment  of  the  oath  he  had 
taken  to  look  after  all  improper  and  profane  conduct,  and  to  inform  the  pastor 
of  it.  And  the  churchwarden  set  a  man,  he  could  depend  upon,  to  watch  the 
fellows,  and  see  whether  they  went  out  of  the  tavern  again  before  service. 

It  was  now  nearly  time  for  the  bell  to  ring,  and,  as  nobody  came  out,  he  went 
to  the  pastor,  and  told  him  what  he  had  seen,  and  that  he  had  set  Samuel  Treu 
to  watch  them. 

The  pastor  was  troubled  by  this  intelligence,  sighed  to  himself,  and  said 
little. 

The  churchwarden  thought  he  was  studying  his  sermon,  and  spoke  less  than 
usual  over  his  glass  of  wine. 

At  last,  as  the  pastor  was  preparing  to  go  into  the  church,  Samuel  came,  and 
the  churchwarden  said  to  him : 

"Thou  canst  tell  the  honorable  Herr  Pastor,  thyself,  all  about  it." 

Then  Samuel  said:   "  May  heaven  bless  you,  honorable  Herr  Pastor,  sir." 

The  pastor  thanked  him,  and  said:  "Are  these  people  not  gone  home  yet? " 

Samuel  "  No,  sir !  I  have  kept  in  sight  of  the  tavern  ever  since  the  elder 
told  me  to  watch,  and  nobody  has  left  the  house,  except  the  bailiff's  wife,  who 
is  gone  to  church." 

Pastor.     "And  thou  art  quite  certain  that  they  are  all  still  in  the  tavern? " 

Sam.     "Yes,  sir,  I  am  sure  of  it." 

21 


32  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

Churchwarden.  "  Your  reverence  sees  that  I  was  not  mistaken,  and  that  it 
was  my  duty  to  let  you  know  of  it." 

Pastor.  "  It  is  a  great  pity  that  such  things  should  take  up  any  one's  time 
and  thoughts  on  a  Sabbath  day." 

Churchivarden.  "  "We  have  only  done  what  was  our  duty,  please  your  rev- 
erence." 

Pastor.  "  I  know  it,  and  I  thank  you  for  your  watchfulness.  But,  neighbors, 
take  care  that,  for  the  sake  of  a  trifling  duty,  you  do  not  forget  one  of  more  dif- 
ficulty and  importance.  To  watch  over  ourselves,  and  over  our  own  hearts,  is 
our  first  and  most  important  duty.  Therefore  it  is  always  unfortunate  when 
such  evil  deeds  distract  a  man's  thoughts." 

After  a  while,  he  added:  "No!  such  shameful  disorder  must  no  longer  be 
endured — forbearance  only  increases  it." 

And  he  then  went  with  the  men  into  the  church. 

CHAPTER  XLH. — AN  ADDITION  TO  THE  MORNING'S  DISCOURSE. 

As  he  was  reading  the  account  of  our  Saviour's  sufferings,  he  came  to  these 
words : — 

"And  when  Judas  had  taken  the  sop,  Satan  entered  into  his  heart." 

And  he  discoursed  to  his  people  upon  the  whole  history  of  the  traitor ;  and 
his  feelings  were  so  strongly  excited,  that  he  struck  the  cushion,  vehemently, 
with  his  hand,  which  he  had  not  done  for  years  before. 

And  he  said  that  all  those  who,  as  soon  as  they  went  out  from  the  Lord's  sup- 
per, ran  off  to  drinking  and  gaming,  were  not  a  jot  better  than  Judas,  and  would 
come  to  the  same  end. 

And  the  congregation  began  to  wonder,  and  consider,  what  could  be  the 
meaning  of  this  great  indignation  of  the  pastor. 

People  began  to  lay  their  heads  together ;  and  a  murmur  went  round  that  the 
"bailiff  had  his  house  full  of  his  associates. 

And  all  the  people  began  to  turn  their  eyes  toward  his  empty  seat,  and  toward 
his  wife. 

She  observed  it — trembled — cast  down  her  eyes — durst  not  look  any  body  in 
the  face ;  and,  as  soon  as  the  singing  began,  made  her  way  out  of  the  church. 

When  she  did  that,  the  excitement  grew  still  greater,  and  some  pointed  at  her 
with  their  fingers ;  some  women  even  stood  up  on  the  furthest  benches  on  the 
women's  side  to  see  her,  and  there  was  so  much  disturbance  that  the  singing 
went  wrong. 

CHAPTER  XLIII. — THE  COUNTRYMEN  IN  THE  TAVERN  ARE  DISTURBED. 
SHE  ran  home  as  fast  as  she  could ;  and,  when  she  entered  the  room,  she  threw 

the  prayer-book,  in  a  rage,  amongst  the  glasses  and  jugs,  and  burst  into  a  violent 

fit  of  crying. 

The  bailiff,  and  the  neighbors,  inquired  what  was  the  matter 

Wife.     "  I  '11  soon  let  you  know  that.     It 's  a  shame  for  you  to  be  drinking  here 

on  the  Sabbath  day." 

Bailiff.     "  Is  that  all  ?    Then  there  is  not  much  amiss." 

Men.     "And  it  is  the  first  time  it  ever  made  you  cry." 

Bailiff.     "I  thought,  to  be  sure,  thou  hadst  lost  thy  purse,  at  the  least." 

Wife.     "  Do  n't  be  talking  thy  nonsense  now.     If  thou  hadst  been  at  church, 

thou  wouldst  not  be  so  ready  with  it." 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  gg 

Bailiff.  "  What  is  the  matter  then  ?  Do  n't  make  such  a  blubbering,  but  tell 
us." 

Wife.  "  The  pastor  must  have  got  to  know  that  these  fellows  of  thine  were 
drinking  here  during  service-time." 

Bailiff.     "  That  would  be  a  cursed  business,  indeed." 

Wife.     "  He  knows  it,  to  a  certainty." 

Bailiff.     "  What  Satan  could  tell  him  of  it  just  now  ?  " 

Wife.  "  What  Satan,  thou  simpleton  ?  They  come  here  smoking  their  pipes 
along  the  street,  instead  of  by  the  back  way ;  and  so  pass  close  by  the  elder's 
house.  It  is  impossible  to  tell  thee  in  what  a  way  the  pastor  has  been  talking, 
and  all  the  people  have  been  pointing  at  me  with  their  lingers." 

Bailiff.     "  This  is  a  damned  trick  that  some  Satan  has  been  playing  me." 

Wife.  "  Why  must  you  come  just  to-day,  you  drunken  hounds? — you  knew 
well  enough  that  it  was  not  right." 

Men.     "  It  is  not  our  fault.     He  sent  for  us." 

Wife.     "Did  he?" 

Men.     "Ay,  that  he  did." 

Bailiff.     "  I  was  in  such  a  strange  way,  I  could  not  bear  to  be  alone." 

Wife.  "Well,  it  is  no  matter  how  it  was.  But,  neighbors,  go,  as  quickly  as 
you  can,  through  the  back  door,  home ;  and  take  care  that  the  people,  as  they 
come  out  of  the  church,  may  find  every  one  of  you  at  his  own  door — and  so  you 
may  put  a  cloak  over  the  thing.  They  have  not  yet  quite  finished  the  hymn, 
but  go  directly.  It  is  high  time." 

Bailiff.     "  Yes ;  away  with  you.     It  is  well  advised." 

The  men  went,  and  the  bailiff's  wife  told  him  that  the  pastor  had  preached 
about  Judas,  how  the  devil  had  entered  into  his  heart,  how  he  had  hanged  him- 
self;— and  how  those  who  went  from  the  Lord's  supper  to  drink  and  game  would 
come  to  a  like  end." 

"He  was  so  earnest,"  said  the  woman,  "  that  he  struck  the  cushion  with  hie 
fist,  and  I  turned  quite  sick  and  faint." 

The  bailiff'  was  so  much  terrified  by  this  account  that  it  struck  him  dumb, 
and  he  could  not  utter  a  word ;  and  heavy  groans  escaped  from  the  proud  man, 
who  had  not  been  heard  to  utter  such  for  years. 

His  wife  asked  him,  repeatedly,  why  he  groaned  in  such  a  manner? 

He  answered  her  not  a  word ;  but  more  than  once  he  muttered  to  himself: 
"  What  is  to  be  the  end  of  this  ?  what  will  become  of  me  ?  " 

He  paced  up  and  down  the  room  in  this  way  for  a  long  time,  and  at  last  said 
to  his  wife :  "  Get  me  a  cooling  powder  from  the  barber's ;  my  blood  is  in  a  fever, 
and  oppresses  me.  I  will  be  bled  to-morrow,  if  the  medicine  does  not  remove 
it." 

His  wife  fetched  him  the  powder ;  he  took  it,  and,  after  a  while,  became 
easier. 

CHAPTER  SLIV. — DESCRIPTION  OF  A  WICKED  MAN'S  FEELINGS  DURING  THE 

SACRAMENT. 

THEN  he  told  his  wife  how  in  the  morning  he  had  gone  with  right  feelings  to 
church,  and  in  the  beginning  of  the  service  had  prayed  to  God  to  forgive  his 
sins ;  but  that  the  pastor's  discourse  had  driven  him  mad,  he  had  not  had  one 
good  thought  since,  and  dreadful  and  horrible  things  had  occurred  to  him  during 
the  sacrament.  "  From  the  beginning  to  the  end,"  said  he  to  his  wife,  "  I  could 


84  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

not  utter  a  single  prayer.  My  heart  was  like  a  stone ;  and  when  the  pastor  gave 
me  the  bread,  he  looked  at  me  in  a  way  I  can  not  describe.  No,  it  is  impossible 
to  give  an  idea  of  it ;  but  I  shall  never  forget  it.  When  a  judge  condemns  a 
poor  sinner  to  the  wheel,  or  the  flames,  and  breaks  his  rod  of  office  over  him,  he 
does  not  look  at  him  in  such  a  way.  I  can  never  forget  how  he  looked  at  me. 
A  cold  sweat  ran  down  my  face ;  and  my  hands  trembled  as  I  took  the  bread 
from  him. 

"And  when  I  had  eaten  it,  a  furious,  horrible  rage  against  the  pastor  took  pos- 
session of  me,  so  that  I  gnashed  with  my  teeth,  and  durst  not  look  round  me. 

"  "Wife  I  one  dreadful  idea  after  another  came  into  my  mind,  and  terrified  me 
like  a  thunderbolt ;  but  I  could  not  get  rid  of  them. 

"  I  shuddered  at  the  altar,  so  that  I  could  not  hold  the  cup  fast ;  and  then 
came  Joseph,  with  his  torn  boots,  and  threw  down  his  rogue's  eyes  when  he  saw 
me.  And  my  three  crowns ! — 0,  how  I  shuddered  at  the  thought  of  my  three 
crowns. 

"  Then  came  Gertrude,  who  raised  her  eyes  to  heaven,  and  then  fixed  them 
on  the  cup,  as  if  she  had  not  seen  me,  as  if  I  had  not  been  there.  She  hates 
me,  and  curses  me,  and  wishes  to  ruin  me ;  and  yet  she  could  behave  as  if  she 
did  not  see  me,  as  if  I  had  not  been  there. 

"  Then  came  the  mason,  and  looked  so  sorrowfully  at  me,  as  if  he  would  have 
said,  from  the  bottom  of  his  heart :  '  Forgive  me,  bailiff.'  He,  who  would  bring 
me  to  the  gallows,  if  he  could. 

"Then  came  Shaben  Michel,  as  pale  and  frightened  as  myself,  and  trembling 
as  much.  Think,  wife,  what  a  state  all  this  put  me  into. 

"  I  was  afraid  Hans  Wust  would  be  coming  too ;  I  could  not  have  stood  that — 
the  cup  would  certainly  have  fallen  out  of  my  hand,  and  I  should  have  dropped 
upon  the  ground.  As  it  was,  I  could  scarcely  keep  upon  my  feet ;  and,  when  I 
got  back  to  my  seat,  all  my  limbs  shook,  so  that  when  they  were  singing  I 
could  not  hold  the  book. 

"And  all  the  time  I  kept  thinking — Arner,  Arner  is  at  the  bottom  of  all 
this  1 '  and  anger,  fury,  and  revenge  raged  in  my  heart  the  whole  time.  A  thing 
I  had  never  thought  of  in  my  life  came  into  my  head  during  the  sacrament.  I 
dare  scarcely  tell  thee  what  it  was.  I  am  frightened  when  I  only  think  of  it. 
It  came  into  my  head  to  throw  his  great  landmark,  on  the  hill,  down  the  preci- 
pice. Nobody  knows  of  the  landmark  but  myself." 

CHAPTER  XLV. — THE  BAILIFF'S  WIFE  TELLS  HER  HUSBAND  SOME  WEIGHTY 
TRUTHS.  BUT  MANY  YEARS  TOO  LATE. 

THE  bailiff's  speech  alarmed  his  wife,  but  she  knew  not  what  to  say,  and  wa3 
silent  whilst  he  spoke. 

Neither  of  them  said  any  thing  more  for  some  time.  At  last  the  wife  began, 
and  said  to  him:  "I  am  very  uneasy  on  account  of  what  thou  hast  been  saying. 
Thou  must  give  up  these  companions  of  thine.  This  business  can  not  end  well, 
and  we  are  growing  old." 

Bailiff.     "  Thou  art  right  enough  there.     But  it  is  not  so  easy  to  do  it." 

Wife.     "  Easy  or  not,  it  must  be  done.     Thou  must  get  rid  of  them." 

Bailiff.  "  Thou  knowest  well  enough  how  I  am  tied  to  them,  and  what  they 
know  about  me." 

Wife.  "  Thou  knowest  still  more  about  them.  They  are  a  parcel  of  rogues, 
and  dare  not  peach.  Thou  must  get  rid  of  them." 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  35 

The  bailiff  groaned,  and  his  wife  continued: — 

"They  sit  eating  and  drinking  here  constantly,  and  pay  thee  nothing ;  and 
when  thou  art  intoxicated  they  can  persuade  thee  to  any  thing.  Only  think 
how  Joseph  tricked  thee  last  night.  I  wanted  to  advise  thee  for  thy  good,  and 
pretty  treatment  I  got  for  my  pains.  And,  moreover,  since  yesterday  two 
crowns  more  have  walked  out  of  thy  waistcoat  pocket,  without  being  so  much 
as  set  down.  How  long  can  this  last  ?  If  thou  wilt  only  reckon  up  how 
much  thou  hast  spent  over  thy  misdeeds,  thou  wilt  find  that  thou  hast  lost  by 
them  every  way.  And  yet  thou  goest  on  still  with  these  people ;  and  many  a 
time  and  oft  it  is  for  the  sake  of  nothing  in  the  world  but  thy  godless  pride. 
Sometimes  thou  wilt  have  one  of  these  hounds  to  say  something  for  thee,  and 
then  another  must  hold  his  tongue  for  thee ;  and  so  they  come  and  eat  and  drink 
at  thy  cost,  and,  for  their  gratitude,  they  are  ready  at  the  first  turn  to  ruin  and 
betray  thee. 

"  Formerly,  indeed,  when  they  feared  thee  like  a  drawn  sword,  thou  couldst 
keep  these  fellows  in  order ;  but  now  thou  art  their  master  no  longer,  and  depend 
upon  it,  thou  art  a  lost  man  in  thy  old  age,  if  thou  dost  not  look  sharply  after 
them.  We  are  in  as  slippery  a  situation  as  can  well  be.  The  moment  thou 
turnest  thy  back,  the  lads  begin  laughing  and  talking,  and  will  not  do  a  stroke 
of  work,  nor  any  thing  but  drink."  So  said  the  wife. 

The  bailiff  answered  her  not  a  word,  but  sat  staring  at  her,  without  speaking, 
whilst  she  spoke.  At  last  he  got  up,  and  went  into  the  garden,  and  from  the 
garden  into  his  meadow,  and  then  into  the  stables.  Trouble  and  anxiety  fol- 
lowed him  every  where ;  but  he  stood  still  for  a  while  in  the  stables,  and  rea- 
soned thus  with  himself: — 

CHAPTER  XLVI. — SOLILOQUY  OP  A  MAX  WHOSE  THOUGHTS  UNHAPPILY  LEAD 
HIM  TOO  FAR. 

"  WHAT  my  wife  says  is  but  too  true ;  but  what  can  I  do  ?  I  can  not  help 
it;  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  escape  out  of  this  net."  So  said  the  bailiff,  and 
again  cursed  Arner,  as  if  he  had  been  the  cause  of  his  getting  into  all  these  dif- 
ficulties ;  and  then  abused  the  pastor  for  driving  him  mad  at  church.  Then  he 
recurred  again  to  the  landmark,  and  said:  "I  will  not  touch  the  cursed  stone; 
but  if  any  one  did  remove  it  the  squire  would  lose  the  third  part  of  his  wood. 
It  is  clear  enough,  that  the  eighth  and  ninth  government  landmark  would  cut 
through  his  property  in  a  straight  line.  But  heaven  forbid  that  I  should  remove 
a  landmark !  " 

Then  he  began  again :  "  Suppose  after  all  it  should  be  no  true  landmark.  It 
lies  there,  as  if  it  had  been  since  the  flood,  and  has  neither  a  letter  nor  a  figure 
upon  it." 

Then  he  went  again  into  the  house,  took  down  his  account  book — added  it 
up — wrote  in  it — blotted  it — separated  his  papers,  and  laid  them  back  again — 
forgot  what  he  had  read — looked  up  again  what  he  had  written — then  put  the 
book  into  the  chest — walked  up  and  down  the  room,  and  kept  thinking  and 
talking  to  himself  of  "  a  landmark  without  a  letter  or  a  figure  upon  it.  There 
is  not  such  another  to  be  found  any  where  I  What  an  idea  is  come  into  my 
head!  Some  ancestor  of  the  family  may  have  made  an  inroad  into  the  govern- 
ment wood,  and  suppose  this  stone  were  of  his'  placing !  By  G ,  it  must  be 

so!  It  is  the  most  unaccountable  bend  in  the  whole  government  boundary. 
For  six  miles  it  goes  in  a  straight  line  till  it  comes  here,  and  the  stone  has  no 
mark  upon  it,  and  there  is  no  trench  of  separation. 


gg  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

"  If  the  wood  really  belongs  to  the  government,  I  should  be  doing  nothing 
wrong.  It  would  be  only  my  duty  to  the  government.  But  if  I  should  be  mis- 
taken !  No,  I  will  not  touch  the  stone.  I  should  have  to  dig  it  up  and  to  roll 
it,  on  some  dark  night,  to  the  distance  of  a  stone's  throw  over  the  level  part  to 
the  precipice;  and  it  is  a  great  weight.  It  will  not  fall  down  like  a  stream  of 
water.  By  day  every  stroke  of  the  mattock  would  be  heard,  it  is  so  near  the 
highway ;  and  at  night — I  dare  not  venture.  I  should  start  at  every  sound.  If 
a  badger  came  by,  or  a  deer  sprang  up,  I  could  not  go  on  with  the  work.  And 
who  knows  whether  really  a  goblin  might  not  catch  me  while  I  was  doing  it? 
It  is  not  safe  around  the  landmark  in  the  night ;  I  had  better  let  it  alone  1 " 

After  a  while  he  began  again:  "To  think  that  there  are  so  many  folks  who 
don't  believe  either  in  hell  or  in  spirits!  The  old  attorney  did  not  believe  a 
word  of  them,  nor  did  the  pastor's  assistant.  By  heaven,  it  is  impossible  that 
he  could  believe  in  any  thing.  And  tha  attorney  has  told  me  plainly,  a  hundred 
times,  that,  when  I  was  once  dead,  it  would  be  all  the  same  with  me  as  with  my 
dog  or  horse.  This  was  his  belief,  and  he  was  afraid  of  nothing,  and  did  what 
he  would.  Suppose  he  were  to  prove  right !  If  I  could  believe  it,  if  I  could 
hope  it,  if  I  could  be  assured  in  my  heart  that  it  was  so,  the  first  time  Arner  went 
out  to  hunt,  I  would  hide  myself  behind  a  tree  and  shoot  him  dead.  I  would 
burn  the  pastor's  house — but  it  is  to  no  purpose  talking.  I  can  not  believe  it ; 
I  dare  not  hope  it.  It  is  not  true ;  and  they  are  fools,  mistaken  fools,  who  think 
so!  There  must  be  a  God!  There  certainly  must  be  a  God!  Landmark! 
Landmark !  I  will  not  remove  thee  I  " 

So  saying  the  man  trembled,  but  could  not  drive  the  thought  out  of  his  head. 
He  shuddered  with  horror !  He  sought  to  escape  from  himself;  walked  up  the 
street,  joined  the  first  neighbor  he  met  with,  and  talked  to  him  about  the  weath- 
er, the  wind,  and  the  snails  which  had  injured  the  rye  harvest  for  some  years 
past. 

After  some  time  he  returned  home  with  a  couple  of  thirsty  fellows,  to  whom 
he  gave  something  to  drink,  that  they  might  stay  with  him.  Then  he  took  an- 
other cooling  powder,  and  so  got  over  the  Sunday. 

CHAPTER  XLVII. — DOMESTIC  HAPPINESS  ON  THE  SABBATH  DAY. 

AND  now  I  leave  the  house  of  wickedness  for  a  time.  It  has  sickened  my 
heart  to  dwell  upon  its  horrors.  Now  I  leave  them  for  a  time,  and  my  spirit  is 
lightened  and  I  breathe  freely  again.  I  approach  once  more  the  cottage  where 
human  virtue  dwells. 

In  the  morning,  after  Leonard  and  his  wife  were  gone  to  church,  the  children 
sat  quietly  and  thoughtfully  together  in  the  house,  said  their  prayers,  sang  and 
said  over  what  they  had  learned  in  the  week ;  for  they  always  had  to  repeat  it 
to  Gertrude  every  Sunday  evening. 

Lise,  the  eldest,  had  the  care  of  her  little  brother  during  service  time.  She 
had  to  take  him  up,  dress  him,  and  give  him  his  porridge ;  and  this  was  always 
Lise's  greatest  Sunday  treat ;  for,  when  she  was  looking  after  and  feeding  the 
child,  she  fancied  herself  a  woman.  You  should  have  seen  how  she  played  the 
part  of  mother,  imitated  her,  fondled  the  baby  in  her  arms,  and  nodded  and 
smiled  to  it ;  and  how  the  little  one  smiled  again,  held  out  its  hands,  and  kicked 
with  its  little  feet;  and  how  it  caught  hold  of  Lise's  cap,  or  her  hair,  or  her  nose, 
and  pointed  to  the  smart  Sunday  handkerchief  on  her  neck,  and  called  out,  ha ! 
ha!  and  then  how  Nicholas  and  Anneli  answered  it,  ha!  ha!  whilst  the  little 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  87 

one  turned  its  head  round,  to  see  where  the  voice  came  from,  spied  out  Nicholas 
and  laughed  at  him ;  and  then  how  Nicholas  sprang  up  to  kiss  and  fondle  his 
little  brother;  and  how  Lise  then  would  have  the  preference,  and  insisted  upon 
it  that  the  little  darling  was  laughing  at  her ;  and  how  carefully  she  looked  after 
it,  anticipated  all  its  wants,  played  with  it,  and  tossed  it  up  toward  the  ceiling, 
and  then  carefully  let  it  down  again  almost  to  touch  the  ground ;  how  the  baby 
laughed  and  crowed  with  delight,  whilst  she  held  it  up  to  the  looking-glass,  that 
it  might  push  its  little  hands  and  face  against  it;  and  how  at  last  it  caught  a 
sight  of  its  mother  in  the  street,  and  crowed  and  clapped  its  hands,  and  almost 
sprang  out  of  Lise's  arms. 

Such  were  the  delights  of  Leonard's  children  on  a  Sunday  or  a  feast  day ;  and 
such  delights  of  good  children  are  acceptable  in  the  sight  of  their  God.  He 
looks  down  with  complacency  upon  the  innocence  of  children,  when  they  are 
enjoying  existence ;  and,  if  they  continue  good  and  obedient,  he  will  bless  them, 
that  it  may  be  well  with  them  to  the  end  of  their  lives. 

Gertrude  was  satisfied  with  her  children,  for  they  had  done  every  thing  as 
they  had  been  told. 

It  is  the  greatest  happiness  of  good  children  to  know  that  they  have  given 
satisfaction  to  their  father  and  mother. 

Gertrude's  children  had  this  happiness.  They  climbed  their  parents'  knees, 
jumped  first  into  the  arms  of  one,  and  then  of  the  other,  and  clasped  their  little 
arms  round  their  necks. 

This  was  the  luxury  hi  which  Leonard  and  Gertrude  indulged  on  the  Lord's 
day.  Ever  since  she  became  a  mother,  it  had  been  Gertrude's  Sunday  delight 
to  rejoice  over  her  children,  and  over  their  tender  affection  for  their  father  and 
mother. 

Leonard  sighed  this  day,  when  he  thought  how  often  he  had  deprived  himself 
of  such  pleasures. 

Domestic  happiness  is  the  sweetest  enjoyment  of  man  upon  earth ;  and  the 
rejoicing  of  parents  over  their  children  is  the  holiest  of  human  joys.  It  purifies 
and  hallows  the  heart,  and  raises  it  toward  the  heavenly  Father  of  all.  There- 
fore the  Lord  blesses  the  tears  of  delight  which  flow  from  such  feelings,  and 
richly  repays  every  act  of  parental  watchfulness  and  kindness. 

But  the  ungodly  man,  who  cares  not  for  his  children,  and  to  whom  they  are  a 
trouble  and  a  burthen — the  ungodly  man,  who  flies  from  them  on  the  week  day, 
and  conceals  himself  from  them  on  the  Sabbath ;  who  escapes  from  their  inno- 
cent enjoyment,  and  finds  no  pleasure  hi  them  till  they  are  corrupted  by  the 
world,  and  become  like  himself — this  man  throws  away  from  him  the  best  bless- 
ing of  life.  He  will  not  in  his  old  age  rejoice  in  his  children,  nor  derive  any 
comfort  from  them. 

On  the  Sabbath  days  Leonard  and  Gertrude,  in  the  joy  of  their  hearts  spoke 
to  their  children  of  the  goodness  of  their  God,  and  of  the  compassion  of  their 
Saviour. 

The  children  listened  silently  and  attentively,  and  the  hour  of  noon  passed 
swiftly  and  happily  away. 

Then  the  bells  began  to  ring,  and  Leonard  and  Gertrude  went  again  to 
church. 

On  their  way  they  passed  by  the  bailiff's  house,  and  Leonard  said  to  Ger- 
trude: "The  bailiff  looked  shockingly  this  morning.  I  never  in  my  life  saw 
him  look  so  before.  The  sweat  dropped  from  his  forehead  as  he  assisted  at  the 


88  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

sacrament.  Didst  thou  not  notice  it,  Gertrude  ?  I  perceived  that  he  trembled 
when  he  gave  me  the  cup." 

"I  did  not  notice  it,"  said  Gertrude. 

Leonard.  "  I  was  quite  disturbed  to  see  the  man  in  such  a  state.  If  I  durst, 
I  would  have  asked  him  to  forgive  me ;  and  if  I  could  in  any  way  show  him 
that  I  wish  him  no  ill,  I  would  do  it  gladly." 

Gertrude.  "  May  God  reward  thee  for  thy  kind  heart,  Leonard.  It  will  be 
right  to  do  so,  whenever  thou  hast  an  opportunity.  But  Rudi's  poor  children, 
and  many  others,  cry  out  for  vengeance  against  this  man,  and  he  will  not  be  able 
to  escape." 

Leon.  "  I  am  quite  grieved  to  see  him  so  very  unhappy.  I  have  perceived, 
for  a  long  time  past,  amidst  all  the  noisy  merriment  of  his  house,  that  some 
anxiety  preyed  upon  him  constantly." 

Ger.  "My  dear  husband,  whoever  departs  from  a  quiet,  holy  life  can  never 
be  really  happy." 

Leon.  "  If  I  ever  in  my  life  saw  any  thing  clearly,  it  was  this :  that  however 
the  bailiff's  followers,  whom  he  had  about  him  in  the  house,  might  help  him  in 
the  way  of  assistance,  or  advice,  or  cheating,  or  violence,  they  never  procured 
for  him  a  single  hour  of  contentment  and  ease." 

As  they  were  thus  conversing,  they  arrived  at  church,  and  were  there  very 
much  moved  by  the  great  earnestness  with  which  the  pastor  discoursed  upon 
the  character  of  the  traitor. 

CHAPTER  XLVIII. — SOME  OBSERVATIONS  UPON  SIN. 

GERTRUDE,  amongst  the  rest,  had  heard  what  was  said,  in  the  women's  seats, 
about  the  bailiff's  house  being  again  full  of  his  people,  and  after  church  she  told 
Leonard  of  it.  He  answered:  "I  can  scarcely  believe  it,  during  church  time, 
and  on  a  Sunday." 

Gertrude.  "It  is  indeed  very  sad.  But  the  entanglements  of  an  ungodly 
life  lead  to  all,  even  the  most  fearful  wickedness.  I  shall  never  forget  the 
description  our  late  pastor  gave  us  of  sin,  the  last  time  we  received  the  sacra- 
ment from  him.  He  compared  it  to  a  lake,  which  from  continual  rains  over- 
flowed its  banks.  The  swelling  of  the  lake,  said  he,  is  imperceptible,  but  it  in- 
creases every  day  and  hour,  and  rises  higher  and  higher,  and  the  danger  is  as 
great  as  if  it  overflowed  violently  with  a  sudden  storm. 

"  Therefore  the  experienced  and  prudent  examine,  in  the  beginning,  all  the 
dams  and  embankments,  to  see  whether  they  are  in  a  fit  condition  to  resist  the 
force  of  the  waters.  But  the  inexperienced  and  imprudent  pay  no  attention  to 
the  rising  of  the  lake,  till  the  dams  are  burst,  and  the  fields  and  pastures  laid 
waste,  and  till  the  alarm  bell  warns  all  in  the  country  to  save  themselves  from 
the  devastation.  It  is  thus,  said  he,  with  sin  and  the  ruin  which  it  occasions. 

"  I  am  not  yet  old,  but  I  have  already  observed,  a  hundred  times,  that  the  good 
pastor  was  right,  and  that  every  one  who  persists  in  the  habitual  commission  of 
any  one  sin,  hardens  his  heart,  so  that  he  no  longer  perceives  the  increase  of  its 
wickedness,  till  destruction  arid  horror  awaken  him  out  of  his  sleep." 

CHAPTER  XLIX. — THE  CHARACTER  AND  EDUCATION  OF  CHILDREN. 

CONVERSING  in  this  manner,  they  returned  to  their  own  cottage. 

The  children  ran  down  the  steps  to  meet  their  father  and  mother,  and  called 
out:  "0,  come,  pray  come,  mothe"!  we  want  to  repeat  what  we  learned  last 
week,  that  we  may  be  ready  directly." 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  gg 

Gertrude.  ""Why  are  you  in  such  haste,  my  loves?  What  need  is  there  for 
it?" 

Children.  "0,  when  we  have  repeated,  mother,  you  know  what  we  may  do 
then  with  our  afternoon  bread.  You  know,  mother,  what  you  promised  yes- 
terday." 

Mother.  "  I  shall  be  very  glad  to  hear  whether  you  can  say  what  yon  have 
learned." 

Chil     "  But  then  we  may  do  it  afterward,  -mother I  may  we  not ?  " 

Mother.     "  Yes,  if  you  are  perfect." 

The  children  were  in  great  delight,  and  immediately  repeated  what  they  had 
learned,  very  perfectly. 

Then  the  mother  gave  them  their  pieces  of  bread  and  two  bowls  of  milk,  from 
which  she  had  not  taken  the  cream,  because  it  was  Sunday. 

She  then  took  the  baby  in  her  arms,  and  rejoiced  in  her  heart  to  hear  the 
children  laying  their  plans,  and  telling  each  other  how  they  would  give  their 
bread.  Not  one  of  them  ate  a  mouthful  of  it,  not  one  of  them  dipped  a  morsel 
into  the  milk,  but  each  rejoiced  over  his  piece,  showed  it  to  the  others,  and 
maintained  that  it  was  the  largest  share. 

The  milk  was  soon  finished,  but  the  bread  was  all  lying  by  the  mother. 
Nicholas  crept  up  to  her,  took  her  hand,  and  said:  "You  will  give  me  a  piece 
of  bread  for  myself  too,  mother  ?  " 

Mother.     "  Thou  hast  got  it  already,  Nicholas." 

Nicholas.     "  Yes ;  but  that  is  what  I  must  give  to  Rudeli." 

Mother.  "  I  did  not  bid  thee  give  it  to  him ;  thou  mayst  eat  it  thyself,  if  thou 
wilt." 

Nich.  "  No,  I  will  not  eat  it ;  but  will  you  not  give  me  another  piece  for  my- 
self, mother?" 

Mother.     "  No,  certainly  not." 

Nich.     "  Why  not,  mother  ?  " 

Mother.  "That  thou  mayst  not  fancy  that  people  should  begin  to  think  of 
the  poor,  only  when  they  are  satisfied,  and  have  eaten  as  much  as  they  can." 

Nich.     "  Is  that  the  reason,  mother?  " 

Mother.     "Wilt  thou  now  give  him  the  whole?  " 

Nich.  "  0,  yes,  to  be  sure  I  will,  mother.  I  know  he  is  terribly  hungry,  and 
we  shall  eat  again  at  six  o'clock." 

Mother.     "And,  Nicholas,  I  think  Rudeli  will  get  nothing  then." 

Nich.     "No,  indeed,  mother;  he  will  have  no  supper." 

Mother.  "The  want  of  those  poor  children  is  great  indeed,  and  one  must  be 
very  hard  and  cruel  not  to  spare,  whatever  one  can,  from  one's  own  food,  to  re- 
lieve them  in  their  distress." 

Tears  came  into  the  eyes  of  Nicholas.  The  mother  then  turned  to  the  other 
children:  "Lise,  dost  thou  mean  to  give  away  all  thy  piece?" 

Lise.     "Yes,  certainly,  mother." 

Mother.     "And  thou  too,  Enne  ?  " 

Enne.     "Yes,  mother." 

Mother.     "And  thou  too,  Jonas?" 

Jonas.     "  I  think  so,  mother." 

Mother.  "I  am  glad  of  it,  my  children.  But  how  will  you  set  about  it? 
Every  thing  should  be  done  in  the  right  way,  and  people  who  mean  very  well, 
often  manage  very  ill.  Tell  me,  Nicholas,  how  wilt  thou  give  thy  bread  ?  " 


90  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

Nich.  "  I  will  run,  as  fast  as  I  can,  and  call  him,  Rudeli,  I  mean ;  but  I  will 
not  put  it  into  my  pocket,  that  I  may  give  it  him  sooner.  Let  me  go  now, 
mother." 

Mother.     "Stop  a  moment,  Nicholas.     And  how  wilt  thou  manage,  Lise?  " 

Lise.  "I  will  not  do  like  Nicholas.  I  will  beckon  Betheli  into  a  corner;  I 
will  hide  the  bread  under  my  apron,  and  I  will  give  it  her,  so  that  nobody  may 
see  it,  not  even  her  father." 

Mother.     "And  what  wilt  thou  do,  Enne?  " 

Enne.  "I  don't  know  where  I  shall  meet  with  Heireli:  I  will  give  it  as  I 
find  best  at  the  time." 

Mother.  "And  thou,  Jonas!  Thou  hast  some  trick  in  thy  head,  little  rogue. 
How  wilt  thou  do  ?  " 

.Jonas.  "I  will  stick  my  bread  into  his  mouth  as  you  do,  mother,  when  you 
are  playing  with  me.  I  shall  say  to  him :  Open  your  mouth  and  shut  your  e}res, 
and  then  I  shall  put  it  between  his  teeth.  I  am  sure  he  will  laugh  then, 
mother." 

Mother.  "  Very  well,  my  children.  But  I  must  tell  you  one  thing.  You 
must  give  the  children  the  bread  quietly,  and  so  as  not  to  be  observed ;  lest 
people  should  think  you  fancy  you  are  doing  a  very  fine  thing." 

Nich.  "  Potz  tausend,  mother !  then  I  had  better  put  the  bread  into  my 
pocket,  after  all."- 

Mother.     "  I  think  so,  Nicholas." 

Lise.  "  I  thought  of  that  before,  mother;  and  that  was  the  reason  why  I  said 
I  should  not  do  like  him." 

Mother.  "  Thou  art  always  the  cleverest,  Lise.  I  ought  not  to  have  forgot- 
ten to  praise  thee  for  it,  and  thou  dost  well  to  remind  me  of  it." 

Lise  blushed  and  was  silent,  and  the  mother  said  to  the  children:  "You  may 
go  now,  but  remember  what  I  have  said  to  you."  The  children  went. 

Nicholas  ran  and  leaped,  as  fast  as  he  could,  down  to  Rudi's  house,  but  Rudeli 
was  not  in  the  street.  Nicholas  shouted,  and  whistled,  and  called,  but  in  vain ; 
he  did  not  come  out,  even  to  the  window.  Then  said  Nicholas  to  himself: 
"What  must  I  do  now?  Must  I  go  into  the  house  to  him?  But  I  must  give 
it  him  alone.  I  will  go  and  tell  him  to  come  out  into  the  street." 

Rudeli  was  sitting  with  his  father  and  sisters  by  the  open  coffin  of  his  dear 
grandmother,  who  was  to  be  buried  in  two  hours ;  and  the  father  and  his  chil- 
dren were  talking,  with  tears  in  their  eyes,  of  the  kindness  and  love  which  she 
had  always  shown  them.  They  wept  over  her  last  trouble  about  the  potatoes, 
and  promised  again,  as  they  looked  at  her,  that,  however  hungry  they  might  be, 
they  would  never  steal  from  any  body. 

At  this  moment  Nicholas  opened  the  door,  saw  the  dead  body,  was  frightened, 
and  ran  out  of  the  house  again. 

Rudi,  who  thought  he  might  have  some  message  to  him  from  Leonard,  went 
after  the  boy,  and  asked  what  he  wanted.  "Nothing,  nothing,"  answered  Nich- 
olas, "only  I  wanted  to  speak  to  Rudeli,  but  he  is  at  his  prayers." 

Rudi.     "You  may  come  in,  if  you  want  him." 

Nich.     "  Let  him  come  here  to  me  for  a  moment." 

Rudi.  "  It  is  so  cold,  and  he  does  not  like  to  leave  his  grandmother.  Come 
into  the  house  to  him." 

Nich.     "I  can  not  go  in.  Rudi.     Let  him  come  to  me  for  a  moment." 

"Well  then,  he  shall,"  answered  Rudi,  and  went  back  into  the  house. 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  91 

Nicholas  followed  him  to  the  door,  and  called :  "  Rudeli,  come  here  just  for 
one  moment." 

Rudeli.  "  I  can  not  come  into  the  street,  Nicholas !  I  would  rather  stay  with 
my  grandmother.  They  will  soon  take  her  away  from  us." 

Nick.     "  It  is  but  for  a  moment." 

Eudi.     "  Go  and  see  what  he  wants." 

Rudeli  went  out,  and  Nicholas  took  him  by  the  arm,  and  saying :  "  Come  here, 
I  have  something  to  say  to  you,"  led  him  into  a  corner,  thrust  the  bread  quickly 
into  his  pocket,  and  ran  away. 

Rudeli  thanked  him,  and  called  after  him:  "Thank  your  father  and  your 
mother  too." 

Nicholas  turned  round,  made  a  sign  to  him,  with  his  hand,  to  be  quiet,  said : 
"Don't  tell  any  body,"  and  went  off  again  like  an  arrow. 

CHAPTER  L. — CONCEIT  AND  BAD  HABITS  INTERFERE  WITH  OUR  HAPPINESS, 
EVEN  WHEN  WE  ARE  DOING  A  KIND  ACTION. 

LISE,  in  the  meantime,  walked  deliberately  to  the  higher  village,  to  Betheli, 
Marx  Reuti's  daughter.  She  was  standing  at  the  window. 

Lise  beckoned  to  her,  and  Betheli  crept  out  of  the  house.  But  her  father, 
who  observed  it,  followed  her,  and  hid  himself  behind  the  door. 

The  children  thought  not  of  him,  and  chattered  away  to  their  hearts'  content. 

Lise.     "  Betheli,  I  have  brought  you  some  bread." 

Betheli.  (Shivering,  and  stretching  out  her  hand.)  "  You  are  very  kind,  Lise ; 
and  I  am  very  hungry.  But  why  do  you  bring  me  bread  to-day  ?  " 

Lise.  "Because  I  like  you,  Betheli.  "We  have  now  bread  enough.  My 
father  is  to  build  the  church." 

Beth.     "And  so  is  mine,  too." 

Lise.     "  Yes ;  but  your  father  is  only  a  day-laborer." 

Beth.     "  It  is  all  the  same  thing,  if  it  brings  us  bread." 

Lise.     " Have  you  been  very  ill  off?  " 

Beth.     "  0 !  I  do  hope  we  shall  do  better  now." 

Lise.     "  "What  have  you  had  for  dinner?  " 

Beth.     "  I  dare  not  tell  you." 

Lise.     "Why  not?" 

Beth.     "  If  my  father  were  to  find  it  out,  he  would — " 

Lise.     "  I  shall  never  tell  him."  , 

Betheli  took  a  piece  of  a  raw  turnip  out  of  her  pocket,  and  said :  "  See  here." 

Lise.     "  Goodness !  nothing  better  than  that  ?  " 

Beth.     "  "We  have  had  nothing  better  this  two  days." 

Lise.     "And  you  must  not  tell  any  body;  nor  ask  any  body  for  any  thing — " 

Beth.  "  If  he  only  knew  I  had  told  you,  it  would  be  a  pretty  business  for 
me." 

Lise.     ""Well,  eat  the  bread  before  you  go  in  again." 

Beth.     "  Yes,  that  I  will,  or  I  shall  not  get  it." 

She  began  to  eat,  and  at  that  moment  Marx  opened  the  door,  and  said-: 
"  What  art  thou  eating,  my  child  ?  " 

His  child  gulped  and  swallowed  down  the  unchewed  mouthful,  and  said: 
"Nothing,  nothing,  father." 

Marx.  "Nothing  was  it?  but  stop  a  moment!  Lise,  I  don't  like  people  to 
give  my  children  bread,  behind  my  back,  for  telling  them  such  godless  lies  about 


92  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

what  is  eaten  and  drunk  in  the  house.  Thou  godless  Betheli !  dost  thou  not 
know  that  we  had  a  chicken  for  dinner  to-day  ?  " 

Lise  now  walked  off  as  fast,  as  she  had  come  deliberately. 

But  Marx  took  Betheli  by  the  arm,  and  dragged  her  into  the  house,  and  Lise 
heard  her  crying  bitterly,  even  when  she  was  a  great  way  off. 

Enne  met  Heireli  in  the  door- way  of  his  own  house,  and  said:  " "Would  you 
like  a  piece  of  bread?" 

Heireli.  "Yes,  if  you  have  any  for  me."  Enne  gave  it  him;  he  thanked 
her,  and  she  went  away  again. 

Jonas  crept  about  Shaben  Michel's  house,  till  Robert  saw  him,  and  came  out. 
"What  are  you  after,  Jonas?"  said  Robert. 

Jonas.     "  I  want  to  have  some  play." 

Robert.     "Well,  I  will  play  with  you,  Jonas." 

Jonas.  "Will  you  do  what  I  tell  you,  Robert?  and  then  we  shall  have  some 
sport." 

Roll.     "What  do  you  want  me  to  do ?  " 

Jonas.     "  You  must  shut  your  eyes,  and  open  your  mouth." 

Roll.     "  Ay,  but  perhaps  you  will  put  something  dirty  into  my  mouth." 

Jonas.     "  No,  I  promise  you,  faithfully,  I  will  not,  Robert." 

Rolt.  "Well — but  look  to  it  if  you  cheat  me,  Jonas!"  (He  opened  his 
mouth,  and  half  shut  his  eyes.) 

Jonas.     "You  must  shut  your  eyes  quite  close,  or  it  will  not  do." 

RoU.  "Yes!  but  if  you  should  prove  a  rogue,  Jonas;"  said  Robert,  shutting 
his  eyes  quite  close. 

Jonas  popped  the  bread  into  his  mouth  directly,  and  ran  off. 

Robert  took  the  bread  out  of  his  mouth,  and  said:  "This  is  good  sport,  in- 
deed," and  sat  down  to  eat  it. 

CHAPTER  LI. — NO  MAN  CAN  TELL  WHAT  HAPPY  CONSEQUENCES  MAT  EESULT 
FROM  EVEN  THE  MOST  TRIFLING  GOOD  ACTION. 

SHABEN  MICHEL  saw  the  sport  of  the  children  from  the  window,  and  knew 
Jonas,  Leonard's  son,  and  it  struck  him  to  the  heart. 

"What  a  Satan  I  am!  "  said  he  to  himself.  "  I  have  sold  myself  to  the  bailiff, 
to  betray  the  man  who  provides  me  with  work  and  food,  and  now  I  must  see 
that  even  this  little  fellow  has  the  heart  of  an  angel.  I  will  not  do  any  thing 
to  injure  these  people.  Since  yesterday,  the  bailiff  has  been  an  abomination  to 
me.  I  can  not  forget  his  look  when  he  gave  me  the  cup !  "  So  said  the  man,  and 
he  remained  at  home  the  rest  of  the  evening,  thinking  over  his  past  conduct. 

Leonard's  children  were  now  all  returned,  and  told  their  father  and  mother 
how  they  had  gone  on,  and  were  very  merry — all  except  Lise,  who  tried,  never- 
theless, to  look  like  the  rest,  and  said  a  great  deal  about  Betheli's  delight  when 
she  received  the  bread. 

"I  am  sure  something  has  happened  to  thee,"  said  Gertrude. 

"0,  no,  nothing  has  happened;  and  she  was  very  glad,  indeed,  to  have  it," 
answered  Lise. 

Her  mother  inquired  no  further,  but  prayed  with  her  children,  gave  them  their 
suppers,  and  put  them  to  bed. 

Afterward  Leonard  and  Gertrude  read  for  an  hour  in  the  Bible,  and  talked 
about  what  they  had  read,  and  passed  a  very  happy  Sunday  evening  together. 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  93 

CHAPTER  LIT. — EARLY  IN  THE  MORNING  is  TOO  LATE  FOR  WHAT  OUGHT  TO  BE 

DONE  THE  EVENING  BEFORE. 

VERY  early  in  the  morning,  as  soon  as  the  mason  awoke,  he  heard  some  one 
calling  to  him,  in  the  front  of  the  house,  and  got  up  immediately,  and  opened 
the  door. 

It  was  Flink,  the  huntsman,  from  the  hall.  He  wished  the  mason  good 
morning,  and  said:  "Mason,  I  should  have  told  thee,  last  night,  to  set  the  men 
to  work  this  morning  without  delay,  at  breaking  stone." 

Mason.  "  From  what  I  hear,  the  bailiff  has  told  all  the  workmen  to  go  to  the 
hall  this  morning.  But  it  is  early  yet,  they  can  scarcely  be  set  out,  and  I  will 
tell  them." 

He  called  to  Lenk,  who  lived  next  door,  but  got  no  answer. 

After  some  time,  Keller,  who  lodged  in  the  same  house,  came  out,  and  said : 
'  Lenk  went  half  an  hour  ago  to  the  hall,  with  the  rest  of  the  men.  The  bailiff 
told  them  last  night,  after  supper,  that  they  must,  without  fail,  be  at  the  hall  be- 
times, as  he  had  to  be  at  home  again  by  noon." 

The  huntsman  was  very  uneasy  at  the  intelligence,  and  said :  "  This  is  a  cursed 
business!  "  " But  what  must  be  done?  "  said  the  mason. 

Flink.     "  Is  there  any  chance  of  overtaking  them  ?  " 

Mason.  "  From  Marti's  hill  thou  mayst  see  them  a  mile  and  a  half  off;  and,  if 
the  wind  be  fair,  thou  mayst  call  them  back  so  far." 

Flink  made  no  delay,  but  ran  quickly  up  the  hill,  called,  whistled,  and  shouted 
with  all  his  might,  but  in  vain.  They  did  not  hear  him,  but  went  their  way, 
and  were  soon  out  of  sight. 

The  bailiff,  who  was  not  so  far  off,  heard  him  call  from  the  hill,  and  looked 
out.  The  huntsman's  gun  glittered  in  the  sun,  so  that  the  bailiff  recognized  him, 
and  wondered  what  the  man  wanted,  and  went  back  to  meet  him. 

Flink  told  him  that  he  had  had  a  terrible  headache  the  day  before,  and  had 
delayed  going,  to  tell  the  mason  to  set  the  men  to  work  to  break  stone  the  first 
thing  this  morning. 

CHAPTER  LIII. — THE  MORE  CULPABLE  A  MAN  is  HIMSELF,  THE  MORE  VIOLENTLY 

DOES   HE   ABUSE   ANOTHER   WHO   HAS  DONE  WRONG. 

"Tuou  cursed  knave!  what  a  trick  thou  hast  played  now!"  said  the 
bailiff. 

Flink.  "  Perhaps  it  will  not  turn  out  so  ill.  How  the  deuce  could  I  tell  that 
the  fellows  would  all  run  off  to  the  hall  before  daybreak!  Was  it  by  your 
orders?" 

Bailiff.  "Yes,  it  was,  thou  dog;  and  I  suppose  I  shall  now  have  to  answer 
for  thy  fault." 

Flink.     "I  wish  I  may  come  clear  off  myself." 

Bailiff.     "  It  is  a  cursed— " 

Flink.  "  That  was  the  very  word  I  used  myself,  when  I  heard  they  were 
gone." 

Bailiff.     "  I  want  no  nonsense  now,  knave." 

Flink.     " Nor  I  neither;  but  what  is  to  be  done ?  " 

Bailiff.     "You  fool,  think." 

Flink.     "  It  is  half  an  hour  too  late  for  my  brains  to  discover  any." 

Bailiff.     "Stop— one  must  never  despair!     A  thought  strikes  me.    Maintain 


04  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

boldly  that  them  gavest  the  order  last  night  to  the  mason's  wife,  or  to  one  of  hia 
children.  They  will  not  out-talk  thee,  if  thou  art  resolute." 

Flirik.     "  I  will  not  try  that  plan.    It  may  miss." 

Bailiff.  "Nay,  it  could  not  miss,  if  thou  wert  steady.  But,  upon  second 
thoughts,  I  have  hit  upon  another  which  is  better." 

Flink.     "What's  that?" 

Bailiff.  "  Thou  must  run  back  to  the  mason,  and  lament  and  grieve  over  it ; 
and  tell  him,  it  may  be  a  great  loss  to  thee  to  have  neglected  the  order ;  but  that 
he  may  get  thee  out  of  trouble  by  speaking  one  word  for  thee,  and  telling  the 
squire  that  he  received  his  note  on  the  Sunday ;  and,  by  mistake,  as  it  was  the 
Sabbath,  had  not  opened  it  till  to-day. 

"  This  will  not  hurt  him  in  the  least,  and  will  get  thee  out  of  the  scrape,  if  thou 
canst  persuade  him  to  do  it." 

Flink.     "You  are  right  there,  and  I  think  it  will  do." 

Bailiff.     "  It  can  not  miss." 

Flink.  "  I  must  go  now.  I  have  other  letters  to  take,  but  I  will  return 
some  time  this  morning  to  the  mason.  Good-by,  Bailiff." 

When  the  bailiff  was  left  alone,  he  said :  "I  will  go  now  and  give  this  account 
at  the  hall.  If  it  does  not  agree,  I  will  say  it  is  what  the  huntsman  told  me." 

CHAPTER  LIV. — USELESS  LABOR  FOR  POOR' PEOPLE. 

IN  the  meantime,  the  day-laborers  arrived  at  the  hall,  sat  down  on  the  benches 
near  the  door,  and  waited  till  they  were  summoned,  or  till  the  bailiff,  who  had 
promised  to  follow  them,  should  arrive. 

When  the  squire's  footman  saw  the  men  at  the  door,  he  went  down  to  them, 
and  said:  "What  are  you  here  for,  neighbors?  My  master  thinks  you  are  at 
work  at  the  building." 

The  men  answered :  "  The  bailiff  told  us  to  come  here  to  thank  the  squire  for 
giving  us  the  work." 

"That  was  not  necessary,"  answered  Glaus.  "He  will  not  keep  you  long  for 
that ;  but  I  will  tell  him  you  are  here." 

The  footman  told  his  master,  and  the  squire  ordered  the  men  to  come  in,  and 
asked  them,  kindly,  what  they  wanted. 

When  they  had  told  him,  and,  awkwardly  and  with  difficulty,  stammered  out 
something  of  thanks,  the  squire  said:  "Who  told  you  to  come  here  on  this 
account  ?  " 

"The  bailiff,"  replied  the  men,  and  again  attempted  to  give  him  thanks. 

"  This  has  happened  against  my  wish,"  said  Arner.  "  But  go  away  now,  and 
be  diligent  and  faithful,  and  I  shall  be  glad  if  the  work  is  of  use  to  any  of  you. 
And  tell  your  master  that  you  must  begin  to  break  the  stone  to-day." 

Then  the  men  went  home  again. 

CHAPTER  LV. — A  HYPOCRITE  MAKES  FRIENDS  WITH  A  ROGUE. 

AND  as  they  returned,  one  of  the  men  said  to  the  others :  "  This  young  squire 
is  a  very  kind-hearted  man." 

"And  so  would  the  old  one  have  been  too,  if  he  had  not  been  imposed  upon, 
in  a  thousand  ways,"  said  the  old  men  with  one  voice. 

"  My  father  has  told  me,  a  hundred  times,  that  he  was  very  well  inclined  in 
his  youth,  and  would  have  continued  so,  if  he  had  not  been  so  infatuated  by  the 
bailiff,"  said  Abi. 

"And  then  it  was  all  over  with  the  squire's  kindness.    It  dropped  only  into 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  95 

the  bailiff's  chest,  and  he  led  him  about,  as  he  chose,  like  a  great  Polar  bear," 
said  Leemann. 

"  "What  a  shameful  trick  he  has  played  us  now,  to  send  us  all  this  way  with- 
out orders,  and  then  leave  us  to  get  out  of  the  scrape  ourselves,"  said  Lenk. 

"That  is  always  his  way,"  said  Kienast. 

"And  a  villainous  way  it  is,"  answered  Lenk. 

"  Yes,  but  the  bailiff  is  a  worthy  man !  People  like  us  can  not  always  judge 
of  the  reasons  for  such  things,"  answered  Kriecher,  in  a  raised  tone;  for  he  saw 
the  bailiff  creeping  along  the  hollow,  and  very  near  them. 

"  The  devil !  thou  mayest  praise  him  if  thou  wilt,  but  I  will  praise  the  squire 
for  the  future,"  said  Lenk,  almost  as  loudly;  for  he  did  not  seethe  bailiff 
below. 

The  latter  now,  as  he  was  speaking,  came  up  out  of  the  hollow,  wished  them 
good  morning,  and  then  said  to  Lenk :  "  And  why  art  thou  praising  the  squire 
at  this  rate  ?  " 

Lenk  answered,  in  some  confusion :  "  Because  we  were  talking  together  about 
his  being  so  good-natured  and  kind  to  us." 

"But  that  was  not  all,"  answered  the  bailiff. 

"I  know  of  nothing  more,"  said  Lenk. 

"It  is  not  right  for  a. man  to  take  back  his  words  in  that  way,  Lenk,"  said 
Kriecher,  and  continued :  "He  was  not  alone  in  what  he  said,  Mr.  Bailiff.  Some 
of  the  others  were  murmuring  that  you  had  left  them  in  such  a  way,  and  I  was 
saying  that  such  as  we  could  not  judge  of  your  reasons ;  and  upon  this,  Lenk 
said :  '  I  might  praise  the  bailiff  if  I  would,  but  that  he  would  praise  the  squire 
for  the  future.' " 

"Aye,  indeed!  and  so  thouwert  comparing  the  squire  with  me,"  said  the 
bailiff,  sneeringly. 

"But  he  did  not  mean  it,  as  it  is  now  represented,"  said  some  of  the  men, 
shaking  their  heads,  and  murmuring  against  Kriecher. 

"  There  is  no  need  of  any  explanation  and  no  harm  done.  It  is  an  old  proverb, 
Whose  bread  I  eat,  his  praise  I  sing,"  said  the  bailiff,  and  shaking  Kriecher  by 
the  hand,  he  said  no  more  upon  the  subject,  but  asked  the  men  whether  Arner 
had  been  angry. 

"  No ;"  answered  the  men,  "  not  at  all.  He  only  said,  we  must  go  home  again, 
and  without  fail  begin  the  work  to-day." 

"  Tell  the  mason  so,  and  that  the  mistake  is  of  no  consequence — my  respects 
to  him,"  said  the  bailiff,  and  proceeded  on  his  way;  as  did  the  men. 

Some  time  before  this,  the  huntsman  had  been  to  the  mason,  and  begged 
and  entreated  him  to  say  that  he  had  received  the  note  on  the  Sunday. 

The  mason  was  willing  to  oblige  the  bailiff  and  the  huntsman,  and  mentioned 
it  to  his  wife. 

"I  am  afraid  of  every  thing  which  is  not  straight-forward,"  said  she,  "and  I 
dare  say  the  bailiff  has  already  made  his  own  excuse.  If  the  squire  asks  thee, 
I  think  thou  must  tell  him  the  truth ;  but  perhaps  he  will  not  inquire  any  thing 
more  about  it ;  and  then  thou  canst  leave  it  as  it  is,  that  nobody  may  be  brought 
into  trouble."  Leonard  accordingly  told  the  huntsman  that  he  would  do  this. 

In  the  mean  time  the  men  returned  from  the  hall. 

"You  are  soon  back  again,"  said  the  mason. 

"We  might  have  spared  our  labor  altogether;"  replied  they. 

Leonard.     "  Was  he  angry  about  the  mistake  ?  " 


90  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

Men,  "  No,  not  at  all !  He  was  very  friendly  and  kind,  and  told  us  to  go 
back  and  begin  the  work  to-day. 

Flink.  "  You  see  it  will  be  of  no  consequence  to  you.  It  is  a  very  different 
thing  for  me  and  the  bailiff." 

"0,  but  the  bailiff's  message;  we  had  nearly  forgotten  it,"  said  Hubel  Rudi; 
"he  sent  his  respects  to  thee,  and  the  mistake  was  of  no  consequence." 

Leon.     " Had  he  been  with  the  squire,  when  you  met  him?  " 

Men.     "  No ;  we  met  him  on  his  way." 

Leon.  "  Then  he  knew  no  more  than  what  you  told  him,  and  what  I  now 
know  myself?" 

Men.     "No!  to  be  sure  he  did  not." 

Flink.     "You  will  keep  your  promise,  mason?  " 

Leon.     "  Yes,  but  exactly  as  I  told  you." 

The  mason  then  ordered  the  men  to  be  at  their  work  early,  prepared  some 
tools,  and,  after  he  had  got  his  dinner,  went  with  the  men,  for  the  first  time,  to 
the  work. 

"  May  God  Almighty  grant  his  blessing  upon  it,"  said  Gertrude,  as  he  went  out. 

CHAPTER  LVI. — IT  is  DECIDED  THAT  THE  BAILIFF  MUST  NO  LONGER  BE  A 

LANDLORD. 

WHEN  the  bailiff  came  to  the  hall,  Arner  kept  him  waiting  some  time.  At 
last  he  came  out  of  the  avenue  and  asked  him,  with  some  displeasure :  "  What 
is  the  meaning  of  this  ?  Why  did  you  send  all  these  people  to  the  hall  to-day, 
without  orders?" 

"  I  thought  it  was  my  duty  to  advise  them  to  thank  your  honor  for  your  good- 
ness," answered  the  bailiff. 

Arner  replied,  "  Your  duty  is  to  do  what  is  useful  to  me  and  to  my  people, 
and  what  I  order  you,  but  not  to  send  poor  folks  all  this  way  for  nothing,  to 
teach  them  to  make  fine  speeches,  which  are  of  no  use,  and  which  I  do  not  seek 
for.  But  the  reason  why  I  sent  for  you,  was  to  tell  you,  that  I  will  no  longer 
have  the  situation  of  bailiff  and  landlord  filled  by  the  same  person." 

The  bailiff  turned  pale,  trembled,  and  knew  not  what  to  reply ;  for  he  was 
quite  unprepared  for  such  a  sudden  resolution. 

Arner  continued,  "I  will  leave  you  to  choose  which  of  the  two  you  prefer; 
but  in  a  fortnight  I  must  know  your  determination." 

The  bailiff  had  somewhat  recovered  himself  again,  and  stammered  out  some 
thanks  for'the  time  allowed  him  to  think  of  it.  Arner  replied,  "I  should  be 
sorry  to  be  hasty  with  any  body,  and  I  do  not  wish  to  oppress  you,  old  man. 
But  the  two  offices  are  incompatible  with  each  other." 

This  kindness  of  Arner  encouraged  the  bailiff.  He  answered,  "Till  now  all 
the  bailiffs  in  your  employ  have  kept  tavern,  and  it  is  a  common  practice  through- 
out the  country." 

But  Arner  answered  him  shortly,  and  said:  "You  have  heard  my  decision." 
He  then  took  out  his  almanac,  and  said  again,  "  This  is  the  20th  of  March,  and 
in  a  fortnight  it  will  be  the  3d  of  April ;  therefore,  upon  the  3d  of  April,  I  ex- 
pect your  answer.  Till  then,  I  have  no  more  to  say."  Arner  then  marked 
down  the  day  in  his  almanac,  and  went  into  the  house. 

CHAPTER  LVII. — HIS  CONDUCT  UPON  THE  OCCASION. 

ANXIOUS  and  troubled  at  heart,  the  bailiff  also  departed.  This  blow  had  so 
much  overcome  him,  that  he  took  no  notice  of  any  of  the  people  he  met  on  his 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  gf 

way  down  the  steps,  and  through  the  avenue ;  and  he  scarcely  knew  where  he 
was,  till  he  came  to  the  old  nut-tree.  There  he  stopped,  and  said  to  himself, 
"  I  must  take  breath.  How  my  heart  beats !  I  don't  know  whether  I  stand 
on  my  head  or  my  feet.  Without  making  a  single  complaint,  without  making 
any  inquiry,  merely  because  it  is  his  pleasure,  I  am  either  to  give  up  being 
bailiff,  or  landlord.  This  is  beyond  all  bounds.  Can  he  compel  me  to  it  ?  I 
think  not.  He  can  not  take  away  my  bailiff's  coat,  without  bringing  some 
charge  against  me ;  and  the  landlord's  license  is  paid  for.  But  if  he  should  try, 
if  he  should  seek  for  open  accusation,  he  may  find  as  much  as  he  will.  Of  all 
the  damned  fellows  I  have  served,  there  is  not  one  who  would  be  true  to  me. 
"What  must  I  do,  now !  A  fortnight  is  something,  however ;  I  have  often  done 
a  great  deal  in  that  tune.  If  I  can  only  keep  up  my  spirits  I  The  mason  is  at 
the  bottom  of  all  this.  If  I  can  only  ruin  him,  it  will  be  every  thing.  I  can 
manage  all  the  rest.  But  how  very  faint  and  weak  I  am  1  "  So  saying,  he  took 
a  brandy  bottle  out  of  his  pocket,  sat  down  in  the  shade  of  the  tree,  applied  to 
his  constant  remedy,  and  swallowed  down  one  draught  after  another.  A  thief 
or  a  murderer,  who  is  pursued  by  a  warrant,  is  not  more  refreshed  by  his  first 
draught  of  water  hi  a  free  land,  than  the  bailiff's  rancorous  heart  was  encour- 
aged by  his  brandy  bottle.  He  felt  himself  better  again  immediately,  and,  witli 
his  strength,  his  wicked  daring  also  revived.  "This  has  refreshed  me  greatly," 
said  he  to  himself.  And  he  got  up  again,  with  the  air  of  a  bold  man  who  bears 
himself  loftily.  "A  little  while  ago,"  said  he,  "I  thought  they  would  eat  me  up 
for  their  supper,  but  now  I  feel  once  more  as  if  I  could  crush  the  mason,  and 
the  fine  young  squire  himself,  with  my  little  finger.  It  is  well  I  did  not  leave 
my  bottle  behind  me.  I  am  a  sad  poor  creature  without  it." 

Thus  reasoned  the  bailiff  with  himself.  His  fears  had  now  entirely  given 
place  to  anger,  pride,  and  his  brandy  bottle. 

He  walked  along  once  more,  as  insolently  and  as  full  of  malice  as  usual. 

He  nodded  to  the  people  in  the  fields,  who  saluted  him,  with  almost  his  wont- 
ed bailiff's  pride.  He  carried  his  knotted  stick  in  a  commanding  manner,  as  if 
he  were  of  more  importance  in  the  country  than  ten  Arners.  He  pursed  up  his 
mouth,  and  opened  his  eyes,  as  wide  and  round  as  a  plough-wheel,  as  they  say 
in  this  country.  Thus  did  the  blockhead  behave  at  a  time  when  he  had  so  little 
oause  for  it. 

CHAPTER  LVHI. — HIS  COMPANION. 

BY  his  side  walked  his  great  Turk ;  a  dog  who,  at  a  word  from  the  bailiff, 
showed  his  great  white  teeth  and  snarled  at  every  body,  but  faithfully  followed 
his  master  through  life  and  death.  This  great  Turk  was  as  much  the  terror  of 
all  the  poor  folks  around,  as  his  master  was  of  all  his  oppressed  dependents  and 
debtors.  This  powerful  Turk  walked  majestically  by  the  side  of  the  bailiff— 
but  I  dare  not  utter  what  is  at  my  tongue's  end,  only  it  is  certain  that  the  bail- 
iff, who  was  in  a  furious  rage,  had  something  in  the  expression  of  his  face  which 
reminded  one  very  much  of  the  dog. 

CHAPTER  LIX. — EXPLANATION  OF  A  DIFFICULTY.  9 

PERHAPS  some  simple  inquirer  may  wonder  how  the  bailiff,  after  yesterday's 
trouble,  and  his  fright  this  morning,  could  still  bear  himself  so  haughtily.  An 
experienced  man  will  see  the  reason  at  once.  Pride  never  torments  a  man 
more,  than  when  he  is  under  a  cloud.  As  long  as  all  is  prosperous,  and  no- 
body can  doubt  a  man's  greatness,  he  seldom  thinks  it  necessary  to  look  so  very 

22 


98  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

big.  But  when  on  all  sides  people  begin  to  rejoice  aver  his  failures,  it  is  no 
longer  the  same  thing — then  the  blood  gets  heated,  foams,  and  runs  over  like  hot 
butter  in  a  kettle,  and  this  was  exactly  the  bailiff's  case.  Moreover,  it  was  very 
natural,  and  the  most  simple  may  understand  it,  that  after  he  had  recruited  him- 
self under  the  nut-tree,  he  should  be  able  to  conduct  himself  as  haughtily  as  I 
have  described.  Besides  this,  he  had  slept  better  than  usual  the  night  before, 
on  account  of  having  taken  his  two  powders,  and  drunk  little,  and  his  head, 
this  morning,  was  quite  cleared  from  the  uneasiness  and  anxiety  of  the  preced- 
ing day. 

CHAPTER  LX. — A  DIGRESSION. 

IT  would,  indeed,  have  been  better  for  the  bailiff  if  he  had  broken  his  brandy 
bottle  to  atoms,  under  the  nut-tree,  and  gone  back  to  his  master  to  explain  to 
him  his  situation,  and  to  tell  him  that  he  was  not  rich,  and  had  need  both  of 
his  office  of  bailiff,  and  of  his  tavern,  on  account  of  his  debts,  and  entreat  him 
to  show  compassion  and  mercy  toward  him.  I  am  sure  Arner  would  not  have 
driven  away  the  old  man,  if  he  had  acted  thus. 

But  such  is  always  the  ill  fate  of  the  ungodly.  Their  crimes  deprive  them  of 
their  reason,  and  they  become,  as  it  were,  blind  in  their  greatest  difficulties, 
and  act  like  madmen  in  their  distress ;  whilst,  on  the  contrary,  good  and  honest 
men,  who  have  pure  and  upright  hearts,  keep  their  senses  much  better  in  their 
misfortunes,  and  therefore  generally  know  better  how  to  help  themselves,  and 
how  to  act  in  all  the  chances  of  life. 

They  bear  their  misfortunes  with  humility,  ask  forgiveness  for  their  faults,  and 
in  their  necessity  look  up  to  that  Power  who  always  lends  assistance  in  need,  to 
those  who  seek  his  help  with  pure  hearts. 

The  peace  of  God,  which  passeth  all  understanding,  is  a  protection  and  polar 
etar  to  them,  through  life,  and  they  always  so  pass  through  the  world,  as,  in  the 
end,  to  thank  God  from  then*  hearts. 

But  the  wickedness  of  the  ungodly  man  leads  him  from  one  depth  to  another. 
He  never  uses  his  understanding  in  the  straight  paths  of  simplicity,  to  seek  for 
repose,  justice,  and  peace.  He  uses  it  only  in  the  crooked  way  of  wickedness, 
to  create  distress,  and  to  bring  about  disturbance.  Therefore  he  is  always  un- 
happy, and  in  his  necessity  becomes  insolent. 

He  denies  his  faults,  he  is  proud  in  his  distress.  He  seeks  to  help  and  save 
liimself  either  by  hypocrisy  and  servility,  or  by  force  and  cunning. 

He  trusts  to  his  own  misled  and  disordered  understanding.  He  turns  away 
from  the  hand  of  his  father,  which  is  stretched  out  toward  him,  and  when  his 
voice  says :  "  Humble  thyself!  it  is  a  father's  hand  which  chastens  and  will  help 
thee,"  he  despises  the  voice  of  his  deliverer,  and  says:  "With  my  own  hand, 
and  with  my  own  head,  will  I  save  myself."  Therefore  the  end  of  the  ungodly 
man  is  always  utter  misery  and  woe. 

CHAPTER  LXI. — AN  OLD  MAN  LAYS  OPEN  HIS  HEART. 

I  HAVE  been  young,  and  now  am  old,  and  I  have  many  times,  and  often,  ob- 
served the  ways  of  the  pious,  and  of  the  ungodly.  I  have  seen  the  boys  of  the 
village  grow  up  with  me.  I  have  seen  them  become  men,  and  bring  up  chil- 
dren and  grand-children — and  now  have  I  accompanied  all  those  of  my  own  age, 
except  seven,  to  the  grave.  0  God !  thou  knowest  the  hour,  when  I  too  must 
follow  my  brethren  I  My  strength  decays,  but  my  eyes  are  fixed  upon  the 
Lord !  Our  life  is  like  a  flower  of  the  field,  which  in  the  morning  springs  up, 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  99 

and  in  the  evening  withers  away.  0  Lord,  our  God !  thou  art  merciful  and 
gracious  toward  those  who  put  their  trust  in  thee — therefore  does  my  soul  hope 
in  thee ;  but  the  way  of  the  sinner  leads  to  destruction.  Children  of  my  vil- 
lage, 0  listen  to  instruction.  Hear  what  is  the  life  of  the  ungodly,  that  you 
may  become  holy.  I  have  seen  children  who  were  insolent  to  their  parents, 
and  heeded  not  their  affection.  All  of  them  came  to  a  bad  end.  I  knew  the 
father  of  the  wretched  Uli.  I  lived  under  the  same  roof  with  him  ;  and  saw, 
with  my  own  eyes,  how  the  godless  son  tormented  and  insulted  his  poor  father. 
And  as  long  as  I  live,  I  shall  never  forget  how  the  old  man  wept  over  him,  an 
hour  before  his  death.  I  saw  the  wicked  boy  laugh  at  his  funeral!  Can  God 
suffer  such  a  wretch  to  live  ?  thought  I. 

What  followed  ?  He  married  a  woman  who  had  a  large  property,  and  he 
was  then  one  of  the  richest  men  of  the  village,  and  went  about,  in  his  pride 
and  in  his  wickedness,  as  if  there  were  none  in  heaven,  or  upon  earth,  above 
him. 

A  year  passed  over,  and  then  I  saw  the  proud  Uli  sorrow  and  lament  at  his 
wife's  funeral.  He  was  obliged  to  give  back  her  property,  to  the  last  farthing, 
to  her  relations.  He  was  suddenly  become  as  poor  as  a  beggar,  and  in  his 
poverty  he  stole,  and  you  know  what  was  his  end.  Children,  thus  have  I  al- 
ways seen  that  the  end  of  the  ungodly  man  is  misery  and  woe. 

But  I  have  also  seen  the  manifold  blessings  and  comforts  in  the  quiet  cottages 
of  the  pious.  They  enjoy  whatever  they  have ;  they  are  content  if  they  have 
little,  and  sober  if  they  have  much. 

Industry  is  in  their  hands,  and  peace  in  their  hearts — such  is  their  lot  in  life. 
They  enjoy  their  own  with  gladness,  and  covet  not  what  is  their  neighbors. 

Pride  never  torments  them,  envy  does  not  embitter  their  lives.  Therefore 
they  are  always  more  cheerful  and  contented,  and  generally  more  healthy,  than 
the  ungodly.  They  go  through  the  necessary  evils  of  life  more  safely  and  peace- 
fully ;  for  their  heads,  and  their  hearts,  are  not  turned  to  wickedness,  but  are 
with  their  work,  and  the  beloved  inmates  of  their  own  cottages.  Therefore  they 
enjoy  life.  Their  heavenly  Father  looks  down  upon  their  cares  and  anxieties, 
and  assists  them. 

Dear  children  of  my  native  village  !  I  have  seen  many  pious  men  and  wo- 
men upon  their  death-beds,  and  I  have  never  heard  any — not  a  single  one, 
amongst  them  all — complain,  in  that  hour,  of  the  poverty  and  hardships  of  life. 
All,  without  exception,  thanked  God  for  the  thousand  proofs  of  his  paternal 
goodness,  which  they  had  enjoyed  through  life. 

0  my  children !  be  then  pious,  and  remain  single-hearted  and  innocent.  I 
have  seen  the  consequences  of  sly  and  cunning  habits. 

Hummel  and  his  associates  were  much  more  crafty  than  the  rest.  They  knew 
a  thousand  tricks,  of  which  the  others  never  dreamed.  This  made  them  proud, 
and  they  thought  that  sincere  men  were  only  to  be  their  fools.  For  a  time  they 
devoured  the  bread  of  the  widow  and  of  the  orphan — they  raged  and  were  furi- 
ous against  all  who  would  not  bow  down  the  knee  to  them.  But  their  end  is 
approaching.  The  Lord  in  heaven  heard  the  sighs  of  the  widow  and  of  the  or- 
phan, and  saw  the  tears  of  the  mother,  which  she  shed  with  her  children,  on 
account  of  the  wicked  men  who  led  away  and  oppressed  the  husband  and  the 
father ;  and  the  Lord  hi  heaven  helped  the  oppressed  ones  and  the  orphans^ 
when  they  had  given  up  all  hope  of  recovering  their  rights. 


100  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

CHAPTER  LXII. — THE  HORRORS  OP  AN  UNEASY  CONSCIENCE. 

ON  Saturday  evening,  when  Hans  Wust  left  the  bailiff  and  went  home,  the 
pangs  of  perjury  tormented  him  still  more,  so  that  he  threw  himself  upon  the 
ground  and  groaned  in  anguish. 

Thus  was  he  distracted  the  whole  night,  and  on  the  following  sabbath  he 
tore  his  hair,  struck  his  breast  with  his  hands,  violently,  could  neither  eat  nor 
drink,  and  called  out :  "  0,  0,  this  meadow  of  Rudi's !  0,  0,  his  meadow,  his 
meadow !  It  tortures  my  very  soul !  0,  0,  Satan  has  got  possession  of  me  1 
0,  woe  is  me  1  "Woe  to  my  miserable  soul  1 " 

Thus  he  wandered  about,  tormented  and  distracted  by  the  thoughts  of  his 
perjury,  and  groaned  in  the  bitter  agony  of  his  spirit. 

Worn  out  with  such  dreadful  sufferings,  he  at  length,  on  Sunday  evening,  fell 
asleep  for  a  time. 

In 'the  morning  he  was  a  little  easier,  and  came  to  the  resolution  no  longer 
to  keep  his  sufferings  to  himself,  but  to  tell  all  to  the  pastor. 

He  took  his  Sunday  coat,  and  whatever  else  he  could  find,  and  fastened  all 
together  in  a  bundle,  that  he  might  borrow  upon  them  the  money  he  owed  the 
bailiff. 

He  then  took  up  the  bundle,  trembled,  went  to  the  pastor's  house,  stood  still, 
was  very  near  running  away  again,  stood  still  once  more,  threw  the  bundle  in 
at  the  door-way,  and  gestured  like  one  out  of  his  mind. 

CHAPTER  LXIII. — KINDNESS  AND  SYMPATHY  SAVE  A  WRETCHED  MAN  FROM  BE- 
COMING UTTERLY  DISTRACTED. 

THE  pastor  saw  him  in  this  situation,  went  to  him,  and  said:  ""What  is  the 
matter,  Wust  ?  What  dost  thou  want  ?  Come  into  the  house,  if  thou  hast  any 
thing  to  say  to  me." 

Then  Wust  followed  the  pastor  into  his  room. 

And  the  pastor  was  as  kind  and  friendly  as  possible  to  Wust ;  for  he  saw  his 
confusion  and  distress,  and  had,  the  day  before,  heard  a  report  that  he  was  al- 
most in  despair  on  account  of  his  perjury. 

When  Wust  saw  how  kind  and  friendly  the  pastor  was  toward  him,  he  re- 
covered himself  a  little,  by  degrees,  and  said: — 

"Honorable  Herr  Pastor!  I  believe  I  have  sworn  a  false  oath,  and  am  almost 
in  despair  about  it.  I  can  not  bear  it  any  longer.  I  will  willingly  submit  to  all 
the  punishment  I  have  deserved,  if  I  may  only  again  hope  in  the  merc}r  and 
goodness  of  God." 

CHAPTER  LXIV. — A  PASTOR'S  TREATMENT  OF  A  CASE  OF  CONSCIENCE. 

THE  pastor  answered  :  "  If  thou  art  truly  grieved  at  heart,  on  account  of  thy 
fault,  distrust  not  God's  mercy." 

Wust.  "  0  sir,  may  I,  may  I  ever,  in  this  my  crime,  hope  for  God's  mercy, 
that  he  will  forgive  me  my  sins  ?  " 

Pastor.  "If  God  has  brought  a  man  to  a  true  repentance  of  his  sins,  so  that 
he  earnestly  longs  and  sighs  after  pardon,  he  has  already  pointed  out  to  him  the 
way  to  forgiveness,  and  to  the  obtaining  of  all  spiritual  mercies.  Depend  upon 
this,  Wust  I  and  if  thy  repentance  be  really  from  thy  heart,  doubt  not  that  it 
will  be  acceptable  in  the  sight  of  God." 

Wust.     "  But  can  I  know  that  it  is  acceptable  to  him  ?  " 

Pastor.     "  Thou  mayest  easily  know,  by  faithfully  examining  thyself,  whether 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  JQl 

it  be  really  sincere,  and  from  the  bottom  of  thy  heart ;  and  if  it  be,  it  will  cer- 
tainly be  acceptable  to  God.  This  is  all  I  can  say.  But,  "Wust !  if  any  one  has 
encroached  upon  his  neighbor's  land,  and  repents  of  it,  he  goes,  without  his 
neighbor's  knowledge  or  request,  and,  quietly  and  of  his  own  accord,  restores 
the  land,  and  gives  back  rather  more  than  less  than  what  he  had  taken  from 
him.  In  this  case,  we  can  not  but  be  convinced  that  his  repentance  is  sincere. 

"  But  if  he  does  not  restore  it,  or  only  part  of  it,  to  him — if  he  gives  it  back 
unfairly — if  he  is  only  anxious  not  to  be  brought  before  a  magistrate — if  it  is 
all  for  his  own  sake  and  not  for  the  sake,  of  his  neighbor  whom  he  has  injured 
— then  are  his  repentance  and  his  restoration  only  a  cloak  with  which  the  fool- 
ish man  cheats  himself.  Wust !  if  thou,  in  thy  heart,  seekest  for  nothing,  but 
to  amend  and  rectify  all  the  mischief  which  thy  wickedness  has  caused,  and  all 
the  trouble  which  it  has  occasioned,  and  to  obtain  the  forgiveness  of  God  and 
man ;  if  thou  wishest  for  nothing  else,  and  wilt  willingly  do  and  suffer  any  thing, 
to  make  all  possible  amends  for  thy  fault ;  then  is  thy  repentance  certainly  sin- 
cere, and  there  is  no  doubt  that  it  will  be  acceptable  to  God." 

Wust.  "  0,  sir!  I  will  most  willingly  do  and  suffer  any  thing  whatever,  upon 
God's  earth,  if  this  weight  may  only  be  removed  from  my  heart.  It  is  such  a 
dreadful  torment !  "Wherever  I  go,  whatever  I  do,  I  tremble  under  this  sin." 

Pastor.  "  Fear  not !  Set  about  the  business  with  sincerity  and  truth,  and 
thou  wilt  certainly  become  easier." 

Wust.     "  If  I  might  only  hope  for  that !  " 

Pastor.  "  Be  not  afraid  !  Trust  in  God !  He  is  the  God  of  the  sinner  who 
flies  unto  him.  Only  do  all  thou  canst,  with  sincerity  and  uprightness.  The 
greatest  misfortune  which  has  happened,  in  consequence  of  thy  oath,  is  the  sit- 
uation of  poor  Rudi,  who,  owing  to  it,  has  fallen  into  grievous  distress ;  but  I 
hope  the  squire,  when  thou  tellest  him  the  whole  affair,  will  himself  take  care 
that  the  man  is  comforted  in  his  necessity." 

Wust.  "  It  is,  indeed,  poor  Rudi,  who  is  a  continual  weight  upon  my  heart. 
Does  your  reverence  think  the  squire  will  be  able  to  help  him  to  his  meadow 
again  ?  " 

Pastor.  "  I  don't  know  that.  The  bailiff  will  certainly  do  all  in  his  power 
to  throw  suspicion  upon  thy  present  testimony.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
squire  will  do  his  best,  to  help  the  unfortunate  man  to  get  his  own  again." 

Wust.     "  0,  if  he  can  only  accomplish  that !  " 

Pastor.  "I  wish  he  may,  with  all  my  heart!  and  I  hope  he  will — but,  what- 
ever may  happen  to  Rudi,  it  is  necessary  that,  for  thine  own  sake  and  for  thy 
peace  of  mind,  thou  shouldst  tell  the  whole  truth  to  the  squire." 

Wust.     "I  will  willingly  do  that,  your  reverence." 

Pastor.  "  It  is  the  right  way,  and  I  am  glad  that  thou  dost  it  so  willingly.  It 
will  bring  back  rest  and  peace  to  thy  heart.  But,  at  the  same  time,  this  acknowl- 
edgment will,  bring  blame,  and  trouble,  and  imprisonment,  and  grievous  distress 
upon  thee." 

Wust.  "  0,  sir !  all  that  is  nothing  in  comparison  of  the  horrors  of  despair, 
and  the  fear  of  never  again  obtaining  the  forgiving  mercy  of  God." 

Pastor.  "  Thou  seest  the  thing  so  properly  and  sensibly,  that  I  am  glad  at  heart 
on  thy  account.  Pray  unto  God,  who  has  given  thee  so  many  good  thoughts, 
and  so  much  strength  for  good  and  right  resolutions,  that  he  will  grant  thee  still 
further  favor.  Thou  art  now  in  an  excellent  way,  and  wilt,  with  God's  assist- 
ance, bear  with  patience  and  humility  whatever  may  await  thee — and,  what- 


102  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

ever  happens  to  thee,  open  thy  heart  to  me.  I  will  certainly  never  forsake 
thee." 

Wust.     "  0,  sir!  how  kind,  how  tender  you  are  to  such  a  wicked  sinner !  " 

Pastor.  "  God  himself  is  all  love  and  forbearance  in  his  dealings  with  us  poor 
mortals,  and  I  should  indeed  be  a  faithless  servant  to  him,  if  I  were  cruel,  and 
unfeeling,  and  severe  to  one  of  my  own  erring  h/ethren,  whatever  might  be  his 
situation." 

In  this  paternal  manner  did  the  pastor  talk  to  Wust,  who  burst  into  tears,  and 
for  some  time  could  not  speak. 

The  pastor  also  remained  silent. 

Wust,  at  last,  began  again  and  said:  "Please  your  reverence,  I  have  one 
thing  more  to  say." 

Pastor.     "What  is  it?" 

Wust.  "Since  this  affair,  I  have  owed  the  bailiff  eight  florins.  He  said,  the 
day  before  yesterday,  that  he  would  tear  the  note ;  but  I  will  not  receive  any 
thing  from  him.  I  will  pay  it  back  to  him." 

Pastor.  "Thou  art  right.  Thou  must  certainly  do  that,  and  before  thou 
speakest  to  Arner  upon  the  subject." 

Wust.  "  I  have  brought  a  bundle  with  me.  It  is  my  Sunday  coat  and  some 
other  things,  which  together  are  well  worth  eight  florins.  I  must  borrow  this 
money,  and  I  thought  you  would  not  be  angry,  if  I  were  to  beg  you  to  lend  it 
me,  upon  this  pledge."  . 

Pastor.  "  I  never  take  security  from  any  body,  and  I  am  obliged  often  to  re- 
fuse such  requests,  sorry  as  I  may  be  to  do  so  ;  but  in  thy  case  I  will  not  refuse." 

Immediately  he  gave  him  the  money,  and  said :  "  Take  it  directly  to  the  bail- 
iff, and  carry  thy  bundle  home  with  thee." 

CHAPTER  LXV. — THERE  is  OFTEN  A  DELICACY  IN  THE  POOREST  PEOPLE,  EVEN 

WHEN   THEY.  ARE   RECEIVING   FAVORS   FOR  WHICH   THEY  HAVE    ASKED. 

WUST  trembled  when  he  received  the  money  from  the  pastor,  and  said :  "  But 
I  will  certainly  not  take  the  bundle  home,  your  reverence." 

"Well  then,  I  must  send  it  after  thee,  if  thou  wilt  not  take  it  thyself,"  said 
the  pastor,  smiling. 

Wust.  " For  heaven's  sake,  sir,  keep  the  bundle;  that  you  may  be  sure  of 
your  money." 

Pastor.  "  I  shall  be  sure  of  it  any  way,  Wust !  Don't  trouble  thyself  about 
that,  but  think  only  of  the  much  more  important  things  thou  hast  to  do.  I  will 
write  to  the  squire  to-day,  and  thou  canst  take  the  letter  to  him  to-morrow." 

Wust.  I  thank  your  reverence.  But,  for  heaven's  sake,  keep  the  bundle.  I 
dare  not  take  the  money  else.  I  dare  not,  indeed !  " 

Pastor.  "  Say  no  more  about  it ;  but  go  directly  to  the  bailiff,  with  the  mon- 
ey, and  come  to  me  again  to-morrow,  at  nine  o'clock." 

Then  Wust  went,  relieved  and  comforted  in  his  mind,  from  the  pastor  to  the 
bailiff's  house ;  and,  as  he  was  not  at  home,  he  gave  the  money  to  his  wife.  She 
said  to  him :  "  Where  did  you  get  so  much  money  at  once,  Wust  ?  "  Downcast 
and  briefly,  Wust  answered :  "  I  have  managed  as  well  as  I  could.  God  be 
praised  that  you  have  it." 

The  bailiff's  wife  replied :  "  We  never  troubled  you  for  it." 

Wust.  "I  know  that  well  enough,  but  it  was  no  better  for  me  on  that  ac- 
count." 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  JQ3 

Bailiff's  Wife.  "You  speak  strangely,  Wust!  "What  is  the  matter  with 
you  ?  All  seems  not  right  with  you." 

Wust.     "  You  will  soon  know  more :  but  count  the  money,  I  must  go," 
The  bailiff's  wife  counted  the  money,  and  said  it  was  right. 
Wust.     "  Well  then,  give  it  to  your  husband  properly.     Good-by," 
Wife.     "If  it  must  be  so,  good-by,  Wust" 

CHAPTER  LXVI. — A  FORESTER  WHO  DOES  NOT  BELIEVE  IN  GHOSTS. 

THE  bailiff,  in  his  way  from  the  hall,  called  at  the  tavern  at  Hirzau,  and  sat 
there  drinking  and  talking  to  the  countrymen.  He  told  them  of  the  lawsuits  he 
had  gained,  of  his  influence  over  the  late  squire ;  how  he,  and  he  alone,  had  kept 
the  people  in  order  under  him ;  and  how  all  was  now  confusion. 

Then  he  gave  his  dog  as  much  dinner  as  a  hard-working  man  would  eat,  ex- 
cept the  wine ;  and  laughed  at  a  poor  fellow  who  sighed,  as  he  saw  the  good 
meat  and  drink  set  before  the  dog.  "  Thou  wouldst  be  glad  enough  to  take  it 
away  from  him,"  said  he  to  the  poor  man ;  patted  the  dog,  and  talked,  and  drank, 
and  boasted  to  the  countrymen  till  evening. 

Then  came  the  old  forester  from  the  hall,  and,  as  he  went  by,  he  called  for  a 
glass  of  wine ;  and  the  bailiff,  who  was  never  willingly  alone  for  a  moment,  said 
to  him :  "  We  will  go  home  together." 

"If  you  are  coming  now,"  said  the  forester ;  "I  must  follow  a  track." 

"This  moment,"  answered  the  bailiff;  asked  first  for  his  dog's  reckoning  and 
then  for  his  own,  paid  both,  gave  the  waiter  his  fee,  and  they  went  out  together. 

When  they  were  alone  on  the  road,  the  bailiff  asked  the  forester  if  it  were 
safe  to  go  through  the  woods  at  night,  on  account  of  spirits. 

Forester.     "  Why  do  you  ask  ?  " 

Bailiff.     "  Only  because  I  wonder  how  it  is." 

Forester.  "  You  are  an  old  fool  then.  To  think  of  having  been  bailiff  thirty 
years,  and  asking  such  a  nonsensical  question.  You  should  be  ashamed  of  your- 
self." 

Bailiff.  "  No,  by  G — !  About  ghosts  I  never  know  what  to  think,  whether 
to  believe  in  them  or  not.  And  yet  I  never  saw  any." 

Forester.  "  Come,  as  you  ask  so  honestly,  I  will  help  you  out  of  your  won- 
der— but  you  will  give  me  a  bottle  of  wine  for  my  information  ?  " 

Bailiff.     "  I  will  gladly  give  you  two,  if  you  can  explain  it." 

Forester.  "  I  have  now  been  a  forester  forty  years,  and  was  brought  up  in  the 
woods,  by  my  father,  ever  since  I  was  a  boy  of  four  years  old.  He  was  always 
talking  to  the  countrymen,  in  taverns  and  at  drinking  bouts,  about  ghosts  and 
horrible  sights  he  saw  in  the  woods — but  he  was  only  playing  the  fool  with 
them.  He  went  on  very  differently  with  me — I  was  to  be  a  forester,  and  there- 
fore must  neither  believe  nor  fear  any  such  stuff.  Therefore  he  took  me  by 
night,  when  there  was  neither  moon  nor  stars,  when  it  was  very  stormy,  and 
on  festivals  and  holy  nights,  into  the  woods.  If  he  saw  a  fire,  or  an  appear- 
ance of  any  kind,  or  heard  a  noise,  I  was  obliged  to  run  toward  it  with  him, 
over  shrubs,  and  stumps,  and  holes,  and  ditches,  and  to  follow  him  over  all 
cross  roads,  after  the  noise :  and  it  was  always  gypsies,  thieves,  or  beggars — and 
then  he  called  out,  with  his  terrible  voice  :  'Away  rogues ! '  and  though  there 
were  twenty  or  thirty  of  them,  they  always  made  off;  and  often  left  pots,  and 
pans,  and  meat  behind  them,  so  that  it  was  laughable  to  behold.  Often  indeed 
the  noise  was  nothing  but  wild  animals,  which  sometimes  make  a  strange  sound ; 


104  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

and  decayed  old  trunks  of  trees  will  give  out  a  light,  and  have  an  appearance 
which  often  frightens  people,  who  dare  not  go  up  to  them ;  and  these  are  all  the 
ghosts  I  ever  in  my  life  saw  in  the  wood.  But  it  always  is,  and  will  be,  a  part 
of  my  business  to  make  my  neighbors  believe  that  it  is  well  filled  with  spirits 
and  devils :  for,  look  ye,  one  grows  old,  and  it  is  a  comfort,  on  a  dark  night,  not 
to  have  to  turn  out  after  the  rascals." 

CHAPTER  LXVII. — A  MAN  WHO  DESIRES  TO  REMOVE  A  LANDMARK,  AND  WOULD 
WILLINGLY  DISBELIEVE  IN  THE  EXISTENCE  OF  SPIRITS,  BUT  DARES  NOT. 

As  the  man  was  thus  speaking,  they  came  to  the  by-path,  through  which  the 
forester  went  into  the  wood,  and  the  bailiff,  who  was  now  left  alone,  reasoned 
thus  with  himself: — 

"  He  has  been  a  forester  now  for  forty  years,  and  has  never  seen  a  ghost,  and 
does  not  believe  in  them,  and  I  am  a  fool  and  believe  in  them,  and  dare  not  pass 
a  quarter  of  an  hour  in  the  wood,  to  dig  up  a  stone. 

"The  squire  takes  away  my  license  from  me,  like  a  thief  and  a  rogue,  and 
that  dog  of  a  stone  upon  the  hill  is  no  true  landmark :  I  will  never  believe  it  is ; 
and,  suppose  it  be,  has  he  a  better  right  to  it  than  I  have  to  my  tavern  ? 

"  To  take  a  man's  property  from  him  by  violence  in  this  way !  "Who  but  the 
devil  could  put  such  a  thing  into  his  head  ?  And  since  he  does  not  spare  my 
house,  I  have  no  reason  to  spare  his  damned  flint-stone.  But  I  dare  not  touch 
it  I  By  night  I  dare  not  go  to  the  place,  and  by  day  I  can  not  manage  it,  on 
account  of  the  high-road."  Thus  he  talked  to  himself,  and  came  to  Meyer's  hill, 
which  is  near  the  village. 

He  saw  the  mason  at  work  upon  the  great  flint  stones  which  lay  around,  for 
it  was  not  yet  six  o'clock,  and  he  was  vexed  in  his  soul  to  see  it. 

"  Every  thing  I  plan  and  contrive,  fails  me !  They  all  play  the  rogue  with 
me.  Must  I  now  go  quietly  past  this  damned  Joseph,  and  not  say  a  word  to 
him  ?  No,  I  can  not  do  it  I  I  can  not  go  by  him,  without  a  word.  I  would 
rather  wait  here,  till  they  go  home." 

He  sat  down,  and  soon  afterward  got  up  again :  "  I  can  not  bear  to  sit  here, 
looking  at  them.  I  will  go  to  the  other  side  of  the  hill.  0,  thou  damned  Jo- 
seph !  "  He  went  a  few  steps  back,  behind  the  hill,  and  sat  down  again. 

CHAPTER  LXVIII. — THE  SETTING  SUN  AND  A  POOR  LOST  WRETCH. 

THE  sun  was  now  setting,  and  its  last  beams  fell  upon  the  side  of  the  hill, 
where  he  sat.  The  field  around  him,  and  all  below  the  hill,  were  already  in 
deep  shade.  The  sun  set  in  majesty  and  beauty,  serenely  and  without  a  cloud ; 
God's  sun  ;  and  the  bailiff,  looking  back,  as  the  last  rays  fell  upon  him,  said  to 
himself,  "  It  is  going  down ;"  and  he  fixed  his  eyes  upon  it,  till  it  was  lost  behind 
the  hill. 

Now  all  was  in  shade,  and  night  came  on  rapidly.  Alas!  shade,  night,  and 
darkness  surround  his  heart  I  No  sun  shines  there  1  Do  what  he  would,  the  bailiff 
could  not  escape  this  thought.  He  shuddered  and  gnashed  his  teeth — instead 
of  falling  down  in  prayer  to  the  Lord  of  heaven,  who  calls  forth  the  sun  again  in 
his  glory — instead  of  hoping  in  the  Lord,  who  saves  us  out  of  the  dust  and  out 
of  darkness,  he  gnashed  with  his  teeth  !  The  village  clock  at  that  moment 
struck  six,  and  the  mason  went  home  from  his  work.  The  bailiff  followed 
him. 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  JQ5 

CHAPTER  LXIX. — HOW  A  MAN  SHOULD  CONDUCT  HIMSELF  WHO  WOULD  PROSPER 
IN  THE  MANAGEMENT  OF  OTHERS. 

THE  mason  had,  during  this  first  afternoon  of  their  being  together,  gained  the 
good-will  of  most  of  the  laborers.  He  worked  the  whole  time  as  hard  as  they 
did — himself  lifted  the  heaviest  stones,  and  stood  in  the  mire,  or  in  the  water, 
where  it  was  necessary,  as  much  or  more  than  any  of  them.  As  they  were 
quite  inexperienced  in  such  labor,  he  showed  them,  kindly  and  patiently,  the 
best  way  of  doing  every  thing  to  advantage,  and  betrayed  no  impatience  even 
toward  the  most  awkward.  He  called  no  one  an  ox,  or  a  fool ;  though  he  had 
provocation  enough,  a  hundred  times  over.  This  patience  and  constant  atten- 
tion of  the  master,  and  his  zeal  in  working  himself,  caused  all  to  succeed  ex- 
tremely well. 

CHAPTER  LXX. — A  MAN  WHO  is  A  ROGUE  AND  THIEF  BEHAVES  HONORABLY,  AND 

THE    MASON'S  WIFE    SHOWS    HER    GOOD    SENSE. 

MICHEL,  as  being  one  of  the  stoutest  and  best  workmen,  was  by  the  master's 
side  the  whole  afternoon,  and  saw  with  what  kindness  and  goodness  he  behaved 
even  to  the  most  stupid ;  and  Michel,  though  a  thief  and  a  rogue,  became  fond 
of  Leonard,  on  account  of  his  fair  and  upright  conduct,  and  resolved  not  to  be 
the  cause  of  any  injury  to  this  good  and  honest  man. 

But  Kriecher  and  the  pious  Marx  Reuti  were  not  so  well  pleased,  that  he 
made  no  distinction  amongst  the  people,  but  behaved  well,  even  to  the  rogue 
Michel.  Lenk,  too,  shook  his  head  often,  and  said  to  himself:  "He  is  but  a 
simpleton !  If  he  had  taken  people  who  could  work,  like  me  and  my  brother,  he 
would  not  have  had  half  so  much  trouble."  But  the  greater  number,  whom  he 
had  kindly  and  patiently  instructed  in  the  work,  thanked  him  from  the  bottom 
of  their  hearts,  and  some  of  them  prayed  for  him  to  that  God,  who  rewards  and 
blesses  the  patience  and  kindness,  which  a  man  shows  toward  his  weaker 
brethren. 

Michel  could  no  longer  keep  to  himself  the  wicked  engagement  into  which 
he  had  entered  with  the  bailiff,  on  Saturday  evening,  and  said  to  the  master,  as 
they  returned:  "I  have  something  to  tell  you.  and  will  go  home  with  you." 

""Well!  come  then,"  said  Leonard. 

So  he  went  with  the  master  into  his  cottage,  and  told  him  how  the  bailiff,  on 
Saturday  evening,  had  bribed  him  to  treachery,  and  how  he  had  received  two 
crowns  in  hand  for  it.  Leonard  started,  and  Gertrude  was  horror-struck,  at  this 
account. 

"It  is  dreadful!  "  said  Leonard. 

"Dreadful,  indeed!"  said  Gertrude. 

"  But  don't  let  it  distress  thee,  Gertrude,  I  beg  of  thee." 

"Be  not  at  all  disturbed  about  it,  master,"  said  Michel,  "  I  will  not  lift  a  hand 
against  you,  depend  upon  that!  " 

Leonard.     "  I  thank  you,  Michel !  but  I  did  not  deserve  this  from  the  bailiff." 

Michel.  "  He  is  a  devil  incarnate.  Hell  has  no  match  for  him,  when  he  is 
furious  and  seeks  for  revenge." 

Leon.     "  It  makes  one  shudder  to  think  of  it." 

Gertrude.     "I  am  quite  bewildered!  " 

Mich.     "  Don't  be  like  children  about  it ;  all  things  have  an  end." 

Ger.  and  Leon.     "  Yes ;  thanks  be  to  God." 


106  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

Mich.  "You  may  have  it  just  your  own  way.  If  you  like,  I  will  let  the 
bailiff  go  on  thinking  I  am  still  true  to  him,  and  to-morrow,  or  the  next  day, 
take  some  tools  from  the  building  and  carry  them  to  his  house.  Then  do  you 
go  quickly  to  Arner,  and  get  a  search  warrant  to  examine  all  houses,  and  begin 
with  the  bailiff's,  and  go  directly  into  the  further  room,  where  you  will  be  sure 
to  find  them ;  but  mind,  you  must  rush  in,  the  very  moment  you  have  shown 
the  warrant,  or  it  will  be  all  in  vain.  They  will  have  warning  and  get  the  things 
out  of  your  sight,  through  the  window,  or  under  the  bed-clothes — and,  if  you  are 
civil,  and  do  not  search  for  them,  you  will  be  in  a  fine  situation.  But,  indeed,  I 
almost  think  it  would  be  better  for  you  to  send  somebody  else ;  you  are  not  fit 
for  such  a  job." 

Leon.     "No,  Michel;  this  kind  of  work  certainly  will  not  suit  me." 

Mich.     "  It  is  all  one.     I  will  find  somebody  to  manage  it  cleverly  for  you." 

Ger.  "  Michel !  I  think  we  should  thank  God,  that  we  have  escaped  from 
the  danger  which  threatened  us,  and  not  be  laying  a  snare  for  the  bailiff,  from 
revenge." 

Mich.  "He  deserves  what  he  will  get.  Never  trouble  your  head  about 
that." 

Ger.  "It  is  not  our  business  to  judge  what  he  deserves,  or  does  not  deserve; 
but  it  is  our  business  to  practice  no  revenge,  and  it  is  the  only  right  conduct  for 
us  to  pursue  in  this  case." 

Mich.  "I  must  confess  that  you  are  in  the  right,  Gertrude.  It  is  a  great 
blessing  to  be  able  so  to  govern  one's  self.  But  you  are  right.  He  will  meet 
with  his  reward,  and  it  is  best  to  keep  entirely  away  from  him,  and  have  nothing 
to  do  with  him.  And  so  I  will  directly  break  with  him,  and  take  him  back  his 
two  crowns.  But  just  now,  I  have  but  a  crown  and  a  half!  "  He  took  it  out  of 
his  pocket,  counted  it,  and  then  said:  "I  don't  know  whether  to  take  him  the 
other  half  by  itself,  or  wait  for  my  week's  wages  on  Saturday,  when  I  can  give 
it  him  altogether." 

Leon.  "  It  will  be  no  inconvenience  to  me  to  advance  you  the  half-crown 
now." 

Mich.  "  "Well,  if  you  can  do  so,  I  shall  be  very  glad  to  have  done  with  the 
man  to-day.  I  will  take  it  to  him,  this  very  hour,  as  soon  as  I  get  it." 

"  Master !  since  yesterday's  sacrament,  it  has  been  heavy  at  my  heart,  that  I 
had  promised  him  to  do  such  wicked  things ;  and,  in  the  evening,  came  your 
Jonas,  to  give  his  afternoon  bread  to  my  child,  and  that  made  me  repent  still 
more  of  behaving  so  ill  to  you.  I  never  knew  you  properly  before,  Leonard, 
and  I  have  never  had  much  to  do  with  you ;  but  to-day  I  saw  you  wishing  to 
help  every  body  kindly  and  patiently,  and  I  thought  I  could  never  die  in  peace, 
if  I  were  to  reward  such  an  honest,  good  man  with  treachery.  (The  tears  came 
into  his  eyes.)  See,  now,  whether  I  am  in  earnest  or  not." 

Leon.     "  Then  never  do  an  injury  to  any  man  again." 

Mich.     ""With  God's  help,  I  will  follow  your  example." 

Ger.     "  You  will  certainly  be  a  happier  man  if  you  do." 

Leon.     "  Do  you  wish  to  go  to  the  bailiff  this  evening  ?  " 

Mich.     "  Yes,  if  I  can." 

The  mason  gave  him  the  half-crown  and  said:  "Do  not  put  him  into  a  paa- 
sion." 

Ger.     "  And  don't  tell  him  that  we  know  any  thing  about  it." 

Mich.     "  I  will  be  as  short  as  I  can ;  but  I  will  go  this  moment,  and  then  it 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  1()T 

will    be    done  with.     Good-by,   Gertrude!      I    thank    you,  Leonard!     Good 
night." 

Leon.     "  Good-by,  Michel."     He  went  away. 

CHAPTER  LXXI. — THE  CATASTROPHE  DRAWS  NEAR. 

WHEN  the  bailiff  arrived  at  home,  he  found  only  his  wife  in  the  house ;  and 
therefore  was  able,  at  last,  to  give  vent  to  all  the  rage  and  anger  which  had 
been  rising  in  him  throughout  the  day. 

At  the  hall,  at  Hirzau,  and  in  the  fields,  it  was  a  different  thing.  A  man  like 
him  is  not  willing  to  lay  open  his  heart  to  others. 

It  will  be  said :  a  bailiff  who  should  do  so  would,  indeed,  be  as  simple  as  a 
shepherd's  lad ;  and  Hummel  was  never  accused  of  this.  He  could,  for  days 
together,  smother  his  rage,  envy,  hatred,  and  vexation,  and  keep  laughing,  and 
talking,  and  drinking ;  but  when  he  came  home,  and,  by  good  or  ill-luck,  found 
the  house  empty,  then  the  rage  which  he  had  before  concealed,  burst  forth 
fearfully. 

His  wife  was  crying  in  a  corner,  and  said :  "  For  heaven's  sake,  do  not  go  on 
in  this  way.  This  violence  of  thine  will  only  drive  Arner  still  further.  He 
will  not  rest  till  thou  art  quiet." 

"He  will  not  rest,  do  what  I  will!  He  will  never  rest,  till  he  has  ruined  me. 
He  is  a  rogue,  a  thief,  and  a  dog.  The  most  cursed  of  all  the  cursed,"  said  the 
man. 

Wife     "  Do  not  talk  in  such  a  shocking  way.     Thou  wilt  go  out  of  thy  mind." 

Bailiff.  "  Have  I  not  cause  ?  Dost  thou  not  know  that  he  will  take  my 
license  or  my  bailiff's  coat  from  me  in  a  fortnight?  " 

Wife.  "  I  know  it;  but,  for  heaven's  sake,  do  jiot  go  on  at  this  rate.  The 
whole  village  knows  it  already.  The  secretary  told  the  attorney,  who  has  pub- 
lished it  every  where.  I  did  not  know  it  till  tea-time  this  evening.  All  the 
people  were  laughing  and  talking  on  both  sides  of  the  street  about  it ;  and  Mar- 
garet, who  was  at  tea  with  me,  took  me  aside,  and  told  me  the  bad  news.  And, 
besides  this,  Hans  Wust  has  brought  back  the  eight  florins.  How  comes  he  by 
eight  florins  ?  Arner  must  be  at  the  bottom  of  it.  Alas !  a  storrn  threatens  us 
on  every  side !  "  So  said  the  wife. 

The  bailiff  started,  as  if  he  had  felt  a  thunder-bolt,  at  the  words  "  Hans  "Wust 
has  brought  back  the  eight  florins !  "  He  stood  still  for  a  time,  staring  at  his 
wife,  with  open  mouth — and  then  said :  "  "Where  is  the  money  ? — where  are 
these  eight  florins  ?  " 

His  wife  set  the  money  on  the  table,  in  a  broken  ale-glass.  The  bailiff  fixed 
his  eyes  for  some  time  upon  it,  without  counting  it,  and  then  said :  "It  is  not 
from  the  hall !  The  squire  never  pays  any  body  in  this  coin." 

Wife.     "I  am  very  glad  it  is  not  from  the  hall." 

Bailiff.  "  There  is  something  more  in  this.  Thou  shouldst  not  have  taken  it 
from  him." 

Wife.     "Why  not?" 

Bailiff.     "I  could  have  got  to  know  from  whom  he  had  it." 
Wife.     "I  did  think  of  that;  but  he  would  not  wait;  and  I  do  not  think 
thou  couldst  have  got  any  thing  out  of  him.     He  was  as  short  and  close  as 
possible." 

Bailiff.  "  All  comes  upon  me  at  once.  I  know  not  what  I  am  doing ! — give 
me  something  to  drink !  "  She  set  it  before  him,  and  he  paced  up  and  down  the 


108  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

room  in  a  frenzy — drank  and  talked  to  himself.  "  I  will  ruin  the  mason !  That 
is  the  first  thing  to  be  done — if  it  cost  me  a  hundred  crowns.  Michel  must 
ruin  him,  and  then  I  will  go  after  the  landmark."  Thus  he  spoke  ;  and,  at  that 
moment,  Michel  knocked  at  the  door.  The  bailiff  started  in  a  fright,  said : 
"  Who  can  be  here  so  late  at  night  ?  "  and  went  to  look  through  the  window. 
"  Open  the  door,  bailiff',"  called  out  Michel. 

CHAPTER  LXXII. — HIS  LAST  HOPE  FORSAKES  THE  BAILIFF. 

"HE  comes  just  at  the  right  moment,"  said  the  bailiff,  as  he  opened  the  door. 
"  Welcome,  Michel !  What  good  news  dost  thou  bring  ?  " 

Michel.     "  Not  much.     I  only  want  to  tell  you — " 

Bailiff.  "Don't  talk  outside  the  door,  man.  I  shall  not  go  to  bed  for  some 
time.  Come  into  the  room." 

Mich.  "I  must  go  home  again.  I  only  want  to  tell  you,  that  I  have  changed 
my  mind  about  Saturday's  business." 

Bailiff.  "Ay,  by  G — !  that  would  be  complete!  No!  thou  must  not  change 
thy  mind.  If  it  is  not  enough,  I  will  give  thee  more — but  come  into  the  room. 
We  are  sure  to  agree  about  it." 

Mich.     "  At  no  price,  bailiff.     There  are  your  two  crowns." 

Bailiff.  "  I  will  not  receive  them  from  thee,  Michel !  Don't  play  the  fool 
with  me.  It  can  not  hurt  thee ;  and,  if  the  two  crowns  are  too  little,  come  into 
my  room." 

Mich.  "  I  will  not  listen  to  another  word  about  it,  bailiff.  There  is  your 
money." 

Bailiff.  "By  G — ,  I  will  not  receive  it  from  thee,  in  this  way.  I  have  sworn 
it,  so  come  into  the  room." 

Mich.  "Well,  I  can  do  that.  There;  now  I  am  in  the  room,  and  here  is 
your  money,"  said  he,  laying  it  upon  the  table;  "and  now  good-by,  bailiff!  " 
and  therewith  he  turned  about,  and  away  he  went. 

CHAPTER  LXXIII. — HE  SETS  ABOUT  REMOVING  THE  LANDMARK. 

THE  bailiff  stood  for  a  while,  stock-still  and  speechless,  rolled  about  his  eyes, 
foamed  with  fury,  trembled,  stamped,  and  then  called  out:  "Wife,  give  me  the 
brandy.  It  must  be  done.  I  will  go  1 " 

Wife.     "Whither  wilt  thou  go,  this  dark  night? 

Bailiff.     "  I  am  going — I  am  going  to  dig  up  the  stone — give  me  the  bottle." 

Wife.     "  For  God's  sake,  do  not  attempt  it." 

Bailiff.     "It  must  be  done  ! — I  tell  thee  I  will  go." 

Wife.  "  It  is  as  dark  as  pitch,  and  near  midnight ;  and  this  week  before 
Easter,  the  devil  has  most  power." 

Bailiff.  "  If  he  has  got  the  horse,  let  him  e'en  take  the  bridle  too.  Give  me 
the  bottle.  I  will  go." 

He  took  a  pickaxe,  a  shovel,  and  a  mattock,  upon  his  shoulder,  and  went,  in 
the  darkness  of  the  night,  up  the  hill,  to  take  away  his  master's  landmark. 

Drunkenness,  and  revenge,  and  rage,  emboldened  him ;  but  when  he  saw  a 
piece  of  shining  wood,  or  heard  a  hare  rustling  along,  he  trembled,  stopped  for 
a  moment,  and  then  went  raging  on,  till  at  last  he  came  to  the  landmark — set  to 
work  directly,  and  hacked  and  shoveled  away,  with  all  his  might. 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 


109 


CHAPTER  LXXIV. — NIGHT  GREATLY  DECEIVES  DRUNKARDS  AND  ROGUES,  ESPE- 
CIALLY WHEN  THEY  ARE  IN  TROUBLE. 

SUDDENLY  a  noise  startled  him,  and,  looking  up,  he  saw  a  black  man  coming 
toward  him.  A  light  shone  about  the  man  in  the  dark  night,  and  fire  burned 
upon  his  head.  "  This  is  the  devil  incarnate  !  "  said  the  bailiff.  And  he  ran 
away,  screaming  horribly,  and  leaving  behind  him  mattock,  pickaxe,  and  shovel, 
with  his  hat  and  the  empty  brandy  bottle, 

It  was  Christopher,  the  poulterer  of  Arnheim,  who  had  been  buying  eggs  at 
Oberhofen,  Lunkofen,  Hirzau,  and  other  places,  and  was  now  on  his  way  home- 
ward. He  had  covered  his  basket  with  the  skin  of  a  black  goat,  and  had  hung 
a  lantern  from  it,  that  he  might  find  his  way  in  the  dark.  This  egg-carrier  knew 
the  voice  of  the  bailiff,  as  he  was  running  away ;  and,  as  he  suspected  that  he 
was  about  some  evil  deed,  he  grew  angry,  and  said  to  himself:  "I  will  give 
the  cursed  knave  his  due  for  once.  He  thinks  I  am  the  devil." 

Then  quickly  setting  down  his  basket,  he  took  up  the  mattock,  pickax,  and 
shovel,  and  his  own  iron-bound  walking-stick,  fastened  them  all  together,  drag- 
ged them  behind  him  over  the  stony  road,  so  that  they  rattled  fearfully,  and  ran 
after  the  bailiff,  crying  out,  with  a  hollow,  dismal  voice:  "Oh! — Ah — Uh! — 
Hummel !  Oh ! — Ah ! — Uh ! — thou  art  mine — sto— op  I — Hummel !  " 

The  poor  bailiff  ran  as  fast  as  he  could,  and  cried  out  pitifully,  as  he  ran : 
"Murder!  help!  watchman!  the  devil  is  catching  me  I  " 

And  the  poulterer  kept  shouting  after  him:  "Oh! — Ah! — Uh!  bai — liff— 
sto — op — bailiff!  thou  art — mine! — bailiff." 

CHAPTER  LXXV. — THE  VILLAGE  is  IN  AN  UPROAR. 

THE  watchman  in  the  village  heard  the  running  and  shouting  upon  the  hill, 
and  could  distinguish  every  word;  but  he  was  afraid,  and  knocked  at  some 
neighbors'  windows. 

"Get  up,  neighbors!  "  said  he,  "and  hear  what  is  going  on  upon  the  hill.  It 
sounds  as  if  the  devil  had  got  hold  of  the  bailiff.  Hark !  how  he  shouts  mur- 
der !  and  help !  And  yet,  God  knows,  he  is  at  home  with  his  wife.  It  is  not 
two  hours  since  I  saw  him  through  the  window." 

"When  about  ten  of  them  were  assembled,  they  declared  they  would  go  alto- 
gether, with  torches,  and  well  armed,  toward  the  noise ;  but  that  they  would 
carry  with  them,  in  their  pockets,  new  bread,  a  testament,  and  psalter,  that  the 
devil  might  not  prevail  against  them. 

The  men  accordingly  went,  but  stopped  first  at  the  bailiff's  house,  to  see 
whether  he  were  at  home. 

The  bailiff's  wife  was  waiting  in  deadly  fear,  wondering  how  he  might  be  go- 
ing on  upon  the  hill,  and  when  she  heard  the  uproar  in  the  night,  and  that  men 
with  torches  were  knocking  at  the  door,  she  was  dreadfully  frightened,  and 
called  out :  "  Lord  Jesus !  what  do  you  want  ?  " 

"Tell  your  husband  to  come  to  us,"  said  the  men. 

"  He  is  not  at  home ;  but  do  tell  me  what  is  the  matter  ?  Why  are  you  here  ?  " 
said  the  woman. 

The  men  answered :  "  It  is  a  bad  business  if  he  is  not  at  home.  Hark !  how 
he  is  crying  murder!  help!  as  if  the  devil  were  taking  him." 

The  wife  now  ran  out  with  the  men,  as  if  she  had  been  beside  herself. 

The  watchman  asked  her,  by  the  way :  "  "What  the  devil  is  your  husband  do- 
ing now  upon  the  hill?  He  was  at  home  two  hours  ago." 


HO  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

She  answered  him  not  a  word,  but  screamed  terribly. 

And  the  bailiff's  dog  growled,  at  its  chain's  length. 

When  the  poulterer  saw  the  people  coming  to  help  the  bailiff,  and  heard  his 
dog  bark  so  fearfully,  he  turned  round,  and  went,  as  quickly  and  quietly  as  he 
could,  up  the  hill  again  to  his  basket,  packed  up  his  booty,  and  pursued  his  way. 

Kunz,  however,  who,  with  the  bailiff's  wife,  was  a  few  steps  before  the  rest, 
saw  that  it  could  not  be  the  -devil ;  and  taking  the  roaring  bailiff  rather  roughly 
by  the  arm,  said  to  him :  "  "What  is  the  matter  ?  why  dost  thou  go  on  in  this 
way?" 

"  Oh — Oh— let  me  alone — 0 — devil  1  let  me  alone !  "  said  the  bailiff,  who  in 
his  terror  could  neither  see  nor  hear. 

"Thou  fool,  I  am  Kunz,  thy  neighbor;  and  this  is  thy  wife,"  said  the  man. 

The  others  first  looked  very  carefully,  to  see  whether  the  devil  were  any  where 
about;  and  those  who  had  torches,  held  them  up  and  down,  to  examine  care^ 
fully  above  and  below,  and  on  every  side ;  and  each  man  put  his  hand  into  his 
pocket  to  feel  for  the  new  bread,  the  testament,  and  psalter. 

But  as  they  still  saw  nothing,  they  began  to  take  courage  by  degrees,  and 
some  grew  bold  enough  to  say  to  the  bailiff:  "  Has  the  devil  scratched  thee 
with  his  claws,  or  trodden  thee  under  lu's  feet,  that  thou  art  bleeding  in  this 
manner  ?  " 

The  others  exclaimed:  "This  is  no  time  for  joking!  we  all  heard  the  horrible 
voice." 

But  Kunz  said:  "I  suspect  that  a  poacher  or  a  woodman  has  tricked  the 
bailiff  and  all  of  us.  As  I  came  near  him,  the  noise  ceased,  and  a  man  ran  up 
the  hill  as  fast  as  he  could.  I  have  repented  ever  since,  that  I  did  not  run  after 
him  ;  and  we  were  fools  for  not  bringing  the  bailiff's  dog  with  us." 

"  Thou  art  a  fool  thyself,  Kunz !  That  was  certainly  no  man's  voice.  It  ran 
through  bone  and  marrow,  and  a  wagon  load  of  iron  does  not  rattle  over  the 
streets  as  it  rattled." 

"  I  will  not  contradict  you,  neighbors !  I  shuddered  as  I  heard  it.  But  yet 
I  shall  never  be  persuaded  that  I  did  not  hear  somebody  run  up  the  hill." 

"  Dost  thou  think  that  the  devil  can  not  run  so  that  one  may  hear  him  ?  "  said 
the  men. 

The  bailiff  heard  not  a  word  of  what  they  were  saying;  and,  when  he  got 
home,  he  asked  the  men  to  stay  with  him  that  night,  and  they  willingly  remained 
in  the  tavern. 

CHAPTER  LXXVI. — THE  PASTOR  COMES  TO  THE  TAVERN. 

Ix  the  mean  time,  the  nightly  uproar  had  roused  the  whole  village.  Even  in 
the  parsonage-house,  they  were  all  awake;  for  they  anticipated  some  evil  tidings. 

"When  the  pastor  inquired  what  was  the  cause  of  the  noise,  he  heard  fearful 
accounts  of  the  horrible  adventure. 

And  the  pastor  thought  he  could,  perhaps,  turn  the  bailiff's  fright  (foolish  as 
its  cause  might  be,)  to  a  good  use. 

He  therefore  went  that  night  to  the  tavern. 

Quick  as  lightning,  vanished  the  wine  jug  as  he  entered. 

The  men  stood  up  and  said :  "  Welcome,  honorable  Herr  Pastor !  " 

The  pastor  thanked  them,  and  said  to  the  neighbors:  "It  is  a  credit  to  you 
to  be  so  ready  and  active  when  a  misfortune  happens.  But  will  you  now  leave 
me  alone  with  the  bailiff,  for  a  short  time  ?  " 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  H} 

"  It  is  our  duty  to  do  as  your  reverence  pleases.     "We  wish  you  good-night" 

Pastor.  "The  same  to  you,  neighbors!  but  I  must  also  beg  that  you  will  be 
careful  what  you  relate  about  this  business.  It  is  very  disagreeable  to  have 
made  a  great  noise  about  a  thing  which  afterward  proves  nothing  at  all,  or  some- 
thing very  different  from  what  was  expected.  So  far,  nobody  knows  any  thing 
about  what  has  happened;  and  you  know,  neighbors,  night  is  very  deceitful." 

"  It  is  so,  your  reverence  I  "  said  the  men,  as  they  left  the  room ;  "  and  a  great 
fool  he  always  is,  and  will  believe  nothing  1 "  added  they,  when  they  were  out- 
side of  the  door. 

CHAPTER  LXXVII. — CARE  or  SOULS. 

THE  pastor  began  at  once:  "Bailiff I  I  have  heard  that  something  has  hap- 
pened to  thee,  and  I  am  come  to  help  and  comfort  thee,  as  far  as  I  am  able. 
Tell  me  honestly  what  has  really  happened." 

Bailiff.     "  I  am  a  poor  unfortunate  wretch,  and  Satan  tried  to  get  hold  of  me." 

Pastor.     "How  so,  bailiff?  where  did  this  happen?  " 

Bailiff.     "Upon  the  hill,  above." 

Pattor.     "  Didst  thou  really  see  any  body?     Did  any  body  touch  thee  ?  " 

Bailiff.  "I  saw  him  as  he  ran  after  me.  He  was  a  great  black  man,  and 
had  fire  upon  his  head.  He  ran  after  me  to  the  bottom  of  the  hill." 

Pastor.     "  Why  does  thy  head  bleed  ?  " 

Bailiff.     "  I  fell  down  as  I  was  running." 

Pastor.     "  Then  nobody  laid  hold  of  thee  ?  " 

Bailiff.     "  No !  but  I  saw  him  with  my  own  eyes." 

Pastor.  "  Well,  bailiff,  we  will  say  no  more  about  that.  I  can  not  under- 
stand how  it  really  was.  But  be  it  what  it  may,  it  makes  little  difference.  For, 
bailiff,  there  is  an  eternity  when,  without  any  doubt,  the  ungodly  will  fall  into 
his  hands ;  and  the  thoughts  of  this  eternity,  and  of  the  danger  of  falling  into 
his  hands  after  thy  death,  must  make  thee  anxious  and  uneasy  in  thy  old  age, 
and  during  thy  life." 

Bailiff.  "0,  sir!  I  know  not  what  to  do  for  anxiety  and  uneasiness.  For 
heaven's  sake,  what  can  I  do,  what  must  I  do,  to  get  out  of  his  hands  ?  Am  I 
not  already  entirely  in  his  power  ?  " 

Pastor.  "Bailiff!  do  not  plague  thyself  with  idle  and  foolish  talking.  Thou 
hast  sense  and  understanding,  and  therefore  art  in  thine  own  power.  Do  what 
is  right,  and  what  thy  conscience  tells  thee  is  thy  duty  to  God  and  man,  and 
thou  wilt  soon  see  that  the  devil  has  no  power  over  thee." 

Bailiff.     "  0,  sir  I  what  must  I  do  to  obtain  God's  mercy  ?  " 

Pastor.  "Thou  must  sincerely  repent  of  thy  faults,  amend  thy  ways,  and 
give  back  thy  unrighteous  possessions." 

Bailiff.  "  People  say  I  am  rich,  your  reverence!  but  heaven  knows  I  am  not 
so." 

Pastor.  "That  makes  no  difference.  Thou  keepest  possession  of  Rudi's 
meadow  unjustly,  and  Wust  and  Keibacher  have  sworn  falsely.  I  know  it, 
and  I  will  not  rest  till  Rudi  has  got  his  own  again." 

Bailiff.     "0,  sir!  for  heaven's  sake,  have  compassion  upon  me." 
Pastor.     "  The  best  compassion  any  one  can  show  thee,  is  this :  to  persuade 
thee  to  do  thy  duty  to  God  and  man." 

Bailiff.     "1  will  do  whatever  you  wish,  sir." 
Pastor.     "  Wilt  thou  give  Rudi  his  meadow  again  ?  " 


112  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

Bailiff.     "Yes,  I  will,  your  reverence!  " 

Pastor.     " Dost  thou  also  acknowledge  that  thou  possesses!  it  unlawfully?" 

Bailiff.     "  I  can  not  deny  it — but  it  will  bring  me  to  beggary  if  I  lose  it." 

Pastor.  "  Bailiff!  it  is  better  to  beg,  than  to  keep  unjust  possession  of  poor 
people's  property." 

The  bailiff  groaned. 

Pastor.     "  But  what  wert  thou  doing  upon  the  hill?  " 

Bailiff.  " For  heaven's  sake,  sir,  do  not  ask  me  that?  I  can  not,  I  dare  not 
tell  you.  Have  mercy  upon  me,  or  I  am  a  lost  man." 

Pastor.  "  I  will  not  urge  thee  to  confess  more  than  thou  desirest.  If  thou 
dost  it  willingly,  I  will  advise  thee  like  a  father ;  but  if  thou  wilt  not,  then  it 
is  thy  own  fault  if  I  can  not  give  thee  the  advice  which  is  perhaps  most  needful 
to  thee.  But  though  I  do  not  seek  to  inquire  after  what  thou  art  not  willing  to 
tell  me,  yet  I  can  not  see  what  thou  canst  gain  by  concealing  any  thing  from 
me." 

Bailiff.  "  But  will  you  never  repeat  what  I  say  to  you,  without  my  consent, 
whatever  it  may  be  ?  " 

Pastor.     "  I  certainly  will  not." 

Bailiff.  "Then,  in  plain  truth,  I  will  tell  you.  I  wanted  to  remove  one  of 
the  squire's  landmarks." 

Pastor.  "Gracious  heaven!  and  why  wouldst  thou  injure  the  excellent 
squire  ?  " 

Bailiff.  "  Because  he  wants  to  take  away  from  me  either  my  tavern  or  my 
office  of  bailiff." 

Pastor.  "Thou  art  indeed  an  unhappy  creature,  bailiff!  And  he  was  so  far 
from  intending  any  unkindness  toward  thee,  that  he  would  have  given  thee  an 
equivalent,  if  thou  hadst  freely  given  up  thy  office  of  bailiff." 

Bailiff.     "  Can  that  be  true,  your  reverence?  " 

Pastor.  "Yes,  bailiff,  I  can  assure  thee  of  it  with  certainty;  for  I  had  it  from 
his  own  lips.  He  was  out  hunting  on  Saturday  afternoon,  and  I  met  him  on  the 
road  from  Reutihof,  where  I  had  been  to  see  the  old  woman,  and  there  he  told 
me  expressly  that  young  Meyer,  whom  he  wished  to  have  for  bailiff,  should 
give  thee  a  hundred  florins  yearly,  that  thou  mightest  have  no  reason  to  com- 
plain." 

Bailiff.  "0,  if  I  had  only  known  this  before,  your  reverence,  I  should  never 
have  come  to  this  misfortune." 

Pastor.  "  It  is  our  duty  to  trust  in  God,  even  when  we  can  not  see  how  his 
fatherly  mercy  will  show  itself;  and  we  should  hope  well  from  a  good  master  on 
earth,  even  when  we  can  not  see  how  he  means  to  manifest  his  kindness  toward 
us.  If  we  do  this,  we  shall  always  remain  true  and  faithful  to  him,  and,  in  all 
our  mischances,  find  his  heart  open  to  compassion  and  paternal  kindness  to- 
ward us." 

Bailiff.  "0,  what  an  unfortunate  man  I  am!  If  I  had  only  known  half  of 
this  before ! " 

Pastor.  "We  can  not  alter  what  is  past!  But  what  wilt  thou  do  now, 
bailiff?  " 

Bailiff.  "  I  know  not  what  in  the  world  to  do !  To  confess  it,  would  endanger 
my  life.  "What  does  your  reverence  think  ?  " 

Pastor.  "  I  repeat  what  I  told  thee  just  now.  I  do  not  wish  to  force  thee 
to  any  confession ;  what  I  say  is  merely  in  the  way  of  advice ;  but  it  is  my 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  ^3 

opinion,  that  the  straight  way  never  turned  out  ill  to  any  body.  Arner  is  merci- 
ful, and  thou  art  guilty.  Do  as  thou  wilt,  but  I  would  leave  it  to  his  com- 
passion. I  see  clearly  that  it  is  a  very  difficult  step  to  take,  but  it  will  also  be 
very  difficult  to  hide  thy  fault  from  him,  if  thou  seekest  true  peace  and  satisfac- 
tion for  thy  heart." 

The  bailiff  groaned,  but  did  not  speak. 

The  pastor  proceeded:  "Do  as  thou  wilt,  bailiff!  I  do  not  wish  to  urge  thee; 
but  the  more  I  consider  it,  the  more  it  appears  to  me  that  it  will  be  the  wisest 
plan  to  leave  it  to  Arner's  compassion :  for  I  must  confess  to  thee,  I  do  not  see 
what  else  thou  canst  do.  The  squire  will  inquire  why  thou  wert  off  the  road 
so  late  at  night." 

Bailiff.  "  Mercy  on  me !  what  a  thought  is  just  come  into  my  head.  I  have 
left  a  pickaxe,  shovel,  and  mattock,  and  I  know  not  what  besides,  by  the  land- 
mark, which  is  half  dug  up  already.  This  may  discover  it  all.  I  am  in  a 
dreadful  fright  about  the  pickaxe  and  mattock !  " 

Pastor.  "If  thou  art  in  such  a  fright,  bailiff,  about  a  poor  pickaxe  and  mat- 
tock, which  may  be  easily  removed  before  daybreak,  think  what  hundreds  of 
such  chances  and  accidents  will  occur,  if  thou  concealest  it,  to  poison  all  the 
remainder  of  thy  life  with  uneasiness  and  constant  bitter  anxiety.  Thou  wilt 
find  no  rest  for  thy  heart,  bailiff,  if  thou  dost  not  confess." 

Bailiff.  "  And  there  is  no  chance  of  my  obtaining  mercy  from  God,  without 
it?" 

Pastor.  "  Bailiff!  if  thou  thyself  thinkest  and  fearest  this,  and  yet  art  silent 
against  the  voice  of  thy  conscience  and  thine  own  conviction,  how  is  it  possible 
that  this  conduct  can  be  pleasing  to  God,  or  restore  thee  to  his  favor?" 

Bailiff.     "  And  is  there  no  other  remedy  ?  " 

Pastor.  "  God's  mercy  will  assist  thee,  if  thou  dost  what  thy  conscience  bids 
thee." 

Bailiff.     "I  will  confess  it" 

The  moment  he  said  this,  the  pastor  prayed  thus,  in  his  presence. 

"All  praise,  and  thanksgiving,  and  adoration,  be  unto  thee  Almighty  Father! 
Thou  didst  stretch  forth  thy  hand  toward  him,  and  the  work  of  thy  love  appeared 
to  him  anger  and  wrath !  But  it  has  touched  his  heart,  so  that  he  no  longer 
hardens  himself  against  the  voice  of  truth,  as  formerly.  0,  thou,  who  art  all 
mercy,  and  compassion,  and  loving-kindness,  graciously  accept  the  sacrifice  of 
his  confession,  and  remove  not  thy  hand  from  him.  Fulfill  the  work  of  thy 
compassion,  and  let  him  again  become  one  of  thy  favored  children !  0,  heavenly 
Father,  the  life  of  man  upon  earth  is  erring  and  sinful,  but  thou  art  merciful  to 
thy  frail  children,  and  forgivest  their  excesses  and  sins  when  they  amend. 

"All  praise  and  adoration  be  unto  thee,  Father  Almighty!  Thou  hast 
stretched  forth  thy  hand  toward  him,  that  he  might  turn  unto  thee.  Thou  wilt 
fulfill  the  work  of  thy  compassion ;  and  he  will  find  thee,  and  praise  thy  name, 
and  acknowledge  thy  mercies  amongst  his  brethren." 

The  bailiff  was  now  thoroughly  moved.     Tears  fell  from  his  eyes. 

"  0,  sir,  I  will  confess  it,  and  do  whatever  is  right.  I  will  seek  rest  for  my 
soul,  and  God's  mercy." 

The  pastor  remained  some  time  longer  with  him,  comforting  him,  and  then 
went  home.  It  was  striking  five  as  he  arrived  at  his  own  house,  and  he  imme- 
diately wrote  to  Arner.  His  letter  yesterday  and  that  to-day  were  as 
follows: —  23 


114  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

CHAPTER  LXXVIII. — TWO  LETTEKS  FROM  THE  PASTOR  TO  ARNER. 

FIRST  LETTER. 

"HIGH  AND  NOBLY  BORN,  GRACIOUS  SIR! 

"  THE  bearer  of  this,  Hans  "Wust,  has  this  day  revealed  a  circumstance  to  me, 
which  is  of  such  a  nature,  that  I  could  not  do  otherwise  than  advise  him  to  con- 
fess it  to  you,  as  to  his  judge.  He  maintains,  on  his  conscience,  that  the  oath 
which  he  and  Keibacher  took  ten  years  ago,  about  the  affair  between  Rudi  and 
the  bailiff,  was  a  false  one.  It  is  a  distressing  story,  and  there  are  some  remark- 
able circumstances  belonging  to  it,  relating  to  the  conduct  of  the  late  secretary, 
and  of  the  unhappy  assistant  of  my  deceased  predecessor,  which  this  confession 
will  bring  to  light,  and  thereby  I  fear  give  rise  to  much  scandal.  But  I  thank 
God  that  the  poorest  of  all  my  many  poor  people,  the  long  oppressed  and  suffer- 
ing Rudi,  with  his  unhappy  family,  may,  by  means  of  this  confession,  again 
obtain  possession  of ,  what  belongs  to  them.  The  daily  increasing  wickedness 
of  the  bailiff,  and  his  daring  conduct,  which  he  now  no  longer  restrains  even  on 
sacred  days,  convince  me  that  the  time  of  his  humiliation  is  approaching.  For 
the  poor  unhappy  Wust,  I  earnestly  and  humbly  entreat  your  compassion,  and 
all  the  favor  which  the  duty  of  justice  can  permit  your  benevolent  heart  to 
show  him. 

"  My  wife  desires  her  best  respects  to  your  lady,  and  my  children  their  grate- 
ful remembrances  to  your  daughters.  They  send  a  thousand  thanks  for  the 
bulbs,  with  which  they  have  enriched  our  little  garden.  They  will  be  most 
zealously  watched  over,  for  my  children  have  quite  a  passion  for  flowers. 

"Permit  me,  high  and  nobly  born,  gracious  sir,  with  the  sincerest  respect  and 
esteem,  to  subscribe  myself 

"Your  high  and  nobly  born  grace's 
"  Most  obedient  servant, 

"JOACHIM  ERNST." 

"Bonnal,  20th  March,  1780." 

SECOND  LETTER. 

"HIGH  AND  NOBLY  BORN,    GRACIOUS  SIR! 

"SiNCE  yesterday  evening,  when  I  informed*  you  (in  a  letter  now  lying  sealed 
beside  me,)  of  some  circumstances  relating  to  Hans  Wust,  an  all-seeing  Provi- 
dence has  strengthened  my  hopes  and  wishes  for  Rudi,  and  my  anticipations 
respecting  the  bailiff,  in  a  manner  which  I  can  not  yet  either  comprehend  or  ex- 
plain. Last  night  there  was  a  general  uproar  in  the  village,  so  violent  that  I 
apprehended  some  misfortune,  and,  upon  inquiring,  was  told  that  the  devil 
wanted  to  seize  the  bailiff.  He  screamed  pitifully,  on  the  hill,  for  assistance,  and 
all  the  people  heard  the  horrible  rattling  noise  of  the  pursuing  devil.  I  could 
not  help  laughing  heartily  at  this  intelligence ;  but  many  more  people  came  in, 
who  confirmed  the  fearful  story,  and  at  last  told  me  that  the  bailiff  was  now  re- 
turned home  again,  with  the  men  who  had  gone  to  help  him ;  but  that  he  had 
been  so  dreadfully  dragged  about  and  injured  by  his  terrible  enemy,  that  it  was 
not  likely  he  would  recover. 

"This  was  a  business  quite  out  of  my  line — but  what  was  to  be  done?  We 
must  make  the  best  of  the  world  as  it  is,  since  we  can  not  alter  it.  I  thought 
that  whatever  this  affair  might  be,  the  bailiff  was  probably  in  a  state  to  be 
worked  upon,  and  that  I  ought  not  to  lose  the  opportunity ;  so  I  went  immediately 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  U5 

to  his  house.  I  found  him  in  a  pitiful  condition.  He  was  firmly  persuaded  that 
the  devil  had  really  been  in  pursuit  of  him.  I  made  a  few  inquiries,  in  hopes  of 
getting  a  clue  to  the  business,  but  could  make  nothing  out.  The  only  thing 
certain  is,  that  nobody  has  touched  him.  and  that  the  wound  on  his  head,  which 
la  but  trifling,  was  caused  by  a  fall.  Moreover,  as  soon  as  the  people  approached, 
the  devil  ceased  his  rattling  and  roaring — but  it  is  time  to  come  to  the  most  im- 
portant part  of  the  story. 

"  The  bailiff  was  humbled,  and  confessed  to  me  two  shocking  deeds,  which  he 
freely  permitted  me  to  communicate  to  your  grace.  First,  that  what  Hans  "Wust 
had  told  me  yesterday  was  true — namely,  that  he  had  deceived  your  late  grand- 
father about  Rudi,  and  obtained  possession  of  the  meadow  unjustly.  Secondly, 
that  this  night  he  intended  to  remove  one  of  your  grace's  landmarks,  and  was 
busy  at  the  work  when  the  fearful  accident  happened  to  him. 

"  I  humbly  entreat  your  compassion  and  forbearance  toward  this  unhappy 
man  also,  who  appears,  God  be  praised  for  it,  to  be  brought  to  repentance  and 
submission.  As  the  circumstances  are  changed  since  yesterday,  I  will  not  send 
Hans  "VYust  with  his  letter,  but  Wilhelm  Abi  shall  deliver  them  both.  I  wait 
your  further  commands  about  them,  and  remain 
"  "With  true  regard, 

"  Your  high  and  nobly  born  grace's 
"  Most  obedient  servant, 

"Sonnol,  21st  March,  1780."  "JOACHIM  ERNST." 

CHAPTER  LXXIX. — THE  POULTERER'S  INFORMATION. 

WILHELM  ABI  set  out  for  Arnburg  with  the  letters,  but  Christopher,  the 
poulterer,  was  at  the  hall  before  him,  and  told  the  squire  the  whole  of  what  had 
happened,  from  beginning  to  end. 

The  squire,  as  he  sat  in  his  arm-chair,  laughed  until  he  had  to  hold  his  sides, 
at  the  account  of  the  bailiff's  fright,  and  of  the  fearful  Oh ! — Ah ! — Uh  1  of  the 
poulterer. 

His  wife  Theresa,  who  was  in  the  next  room,  heard  the  bursts  of  laughter  and 
the  poulterer's  exclamations,  and  called  out:  "Charles,  what  is  the  matter? 
Come  and  tell  me  what  it  is  all  about !  " 

Then  the  squire  said  to  the  poulterer:  "My  wife  wants  to  hear  how  you  per- 
form the  devil :  come  in." 

And  he  took  the  poulterer  into  his  wife's  room. 

The  man  there  repeated  his  tale— how  he  had  driven  the  bailiff  down  into  the 
field — how  the  neighbors  had  come  out  by  dozens,  with  spits,  and  cudgels,  and 
torches,  to  the  poor  bailiff's  help — and  how  he  had  then  crept  up  the  hill  again. 

The  squire  and  his  lady  were  much  diverted,  and  the  squire  gave  the  poulterer 
some  glasses  of  good  wine,  and  bade  him  tell  nobody  a  single  word  of  the 
affair. 

In  the  mean  time  Wilhelm  Abi  arrived,  with  the  pastor's  letters. 

Arner  read  them,  and  was  the  most  touched  by  Hans  Wust's  story. 

The  negligence  of  his  grandfather,  and  the  misery  of  Rudi,  deeply  grieved 
him ;  but  the  pastor's  judicious  conduct  rejoiced  his  heart.  He  gave  the  letters 
to  Theresa,  and  said:  "My  pastor  in  Bonnal  is  a  most  excellent  man.  Nobody 
could  have  acted  more  kindly  and  prudently." 

Theresa  read  the  letters,  and  said :  "  This  is  a  sad  business  about  Wust !  You 
must  help  Rudi  to  recover  his  property  without  delay ;  and,  if  the  bailiff  refuses 


HQ  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

to  give  up  the  meadow,  throw  him  into  prison.  He  is  a  wretch  who  must  not 
be  spared/' 

"I  will  have  him  hanged,  to  a  certainty! "  answered  Arner. 

"0,  no !  you  will  not  put  any  body  to  death !  "  replied  Theresa. 

"  Do  you  think  not,  Theresa?  "  said  Arner  laughing. 

"  Yes,  Charles  I  I  am  sure  of  it !  "  said  Theresa,  affectionately  kissing  him. 

"  You  would  not  kiss  me  any  more,  I  suspect,  if  I  were  to  do  so,  Theresa," 
said  Arner. 

"  No,  indeed !  "  said  Theresa,  smiling. 

Arner  then  went  into  his  own  room,  and  answered  the  pastor's  letters. 

CHAPTER  LXXX. — THE  SQUIRE'S  ANSWER  TO  THE  PASTOR. 
"DEAR  AND  REVEREND  SIR, 

.  "  An  hour  before  I  received  your  letters,  I  had  heard  the  story  from  the  very 
devil  who  chased  the  bailiff  down  the  hill;  and  who  was  no  other  than  your  old 
acquaintance,  Christopher,  the  poulterer.  I  will  give  you  an  account  of  the 
whole  affair,  which  was  very  laughable,  to-day ;  for  I  am  coming  to  the  village, 
where  I  will  hold  a  parish-meeting  about  the  landmark.  I  mean  at  the  same 
time  to  have  a  comedy  with  the  people,  about  their  belief  in  ghosts ;  and  you, 
my  dear  sir,  must  be  present  at  this  play.  I  think  you  have  not  been  at  many, 
or  you  would  not  be  so  shy,  and  perhaps  not  so  truly  good  and  contented  a 
man. 

"  I  beg  your  acceptance  of  some  of  my  best  wine,  with  my  heartfelt  thanks 
for  the  upright  and  excellent  assistance  you  have  given  me,  in  making  amends 
for  my  grandfather's  failings. 

"  We  will  this  afternoon  drink  some  of  it  to  his  memory.  Believe  me,  he 
was  a  good  man  at  heart,  though  rogues  too  often  abused  his  kindness  and  con- 
fidence. I  thank  you,  my  dear  sir,  for  the  pains  and  care  you  have  taken 
about  Hubel  Rudi.  I  will  certainly  assist  him.  This  very  day  he  must  be  in 
charity  with  my  dear  grandfather,  and  I  trust  he  will  never  again  lament 
over  the  recollection  of  him.  I  am  grieved  at  heart,  that  he  has  suffered 
so  much,  and  I  will  do  my  best,  in  any  way  I  can,  to  comfort  him  for 
his  past  distress,  by  future  ease  and  happiness.  "We  are  certainly  bound 
to  make  good  the  failings  of  our  parents  wherever  it  is  in  our  power.  0,  my 
dear  sir,  it  is  a  sad  mistake,  to  say  that  a  judge  is  never  answerable,  nor  obliged 
to  make  reparation.  How  little  is  he  acquainted  with  mankind,  who  does  not 
see  that  all  judges  are  bound,  at  the  risk  of  their  property,  continually  to  rouse 
and  exert  all  their  powers,  not  only  to  be  honorable,  but  to  be  careful  and 
watchful.  But  I  am  going  from  the  purpose. 

"My  wife  and  children  desire  me  to  give  their  kind  regards  to  your  family,  and 
send  your  daughters  another  box  of  flower-roots.  Farewell,  my  dear  sir !  and 
do  not  trouble  yourself  to  get  all  the  rooms  into  such  order,  and  to  provide  so 
many  good  things,  as  if  I  were  coming  from  pure  hunger.  If  you  do,  I  will  not 
visit  you  any  more,  dear  as  you  are  to  me. 

"  Once  more  accept  my  best  thanks,  and  believe  me  ever 

"  Your  faithful  and  affectionate  friend, 

"CHARLES  ARNER  VON  ARNHEIM." 
"Arriburg,  21st  March,  1780." 

"  P.  S.  My  wife  has  just  told  me  that  she  wishes  to  be  present  at  the  comedy 
of  the  poulterer,  so  we  shall  pour  down  upon  you,  with  all  the  children,  in  the 
family  coach." 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  Hf 

CHAPTER  LXXXT. — A  GOOD  COW-MAN. 

WHEN  Arner  had  dismissed  Wilhelm,  he  went  into  his  cow-house,  and,  from 
amongst  his  fifty  cows,  he  chose  out  one  for  Hubel  Rudi,  and  said  to  his  cow- 
man :  "  Feed  this  cow  well,  and  tell  the  boy  to  drive  it  to  Bonnal,  and  put  it  up 
in  the  pastor's  cow-house,  till  I  come." 

The  cow-man  replied:  "Sir!  I  must  obey  your  orders;  but  there  is  not  one 
amongst  the  fifty,  I  would  not  rather  part  with.  She  is  such  a  fine,  young, 
handsome  cow ;  and  just  at  her  best  time  for  milking." 

"It  is  to  your  credit,  cow-man,  to  be  so  sorry  to  lose  the  good  cow;  but  I  am 
glad  I  chose  it,  I  was  looking  for  the  best.  She  is  going  to  belong  to  a  poor 
man,  cow-man,  so  don't  grieve  over  her.  She  will  be  a  treasure  to  him." 

Cow-man.  "  0,  sir,  it  is  a  sad  pity  to  send  her.  She  will  fall  off  so  in  a  poor 
man's  hands,  grow  so  thin,  and  lose  her  looks.  0,  sir,  if  I  find  he  starves  her, 
I  shall  be  running  off  to  Bonnal  every  day,  with  all  my  pockets  full  of  bread  and 
salt  for  her." 

Squire.  "Thou  art  a  good  fellow;  but  the  man  has  an  excellent  meadow  of 
his  own,  and  plenty  of  food  for  her." 

Cow-man.     "  "Well,  if  she  must  go,  I  do  hope  she  will  be  well  treated." 

Squire.     "  Depend  upon  it,  she  will  want  for  nothing,  cow-man." 

The  man  fed  the  cow,  and  sighed  to  himself,  because  his  master  had  chosen 
the  best  of  all  his  set,  to  give  away.  He  gave  his  favorite  Spot  his  own  bread 
and  salt  from  breakfast,  and  then  said  to  the  boy:  "Put  on  thy  Sunday  coat 
and  a  clean  shirt,  brush  thy  shoes,  and  make  thj'self  neat:  thou  must  drive  Spot 
to  Bonnal." 

Arid  the  boy  did  as  the  cow-man  bade  him,  and  drove  away  the  cow. 

Arner  stood  still  for  a  while,  earnestly  considering  what  he  should  decide 
about  the  bailiff. 

Asa  father,  when  he  restrains  his  wild  untoward  boys,  seeks  only  the  welfare 
of  his  children — as  a  father  grieves  at  the  punishment  he  is  obliged  to  inflict, 
and  would  gladly  exchange  it  for  forgiveness  and  approbation — as  he  shows  his 
sorrow  in  punishing,  and  touches  his  children's  hearts  still  more  by  his  tender 
regret  than  by  the  chastisement — so,  thought  Arner,  must  I  punish,  if  I  would 
perform  my  duty  as  judge,  in  the  spirit  of  a  father  to  my  dependants. 

With  these  feelings  he  formed  his  decisions  about  the  bailiff. 

In  the  mean  time  his  wife  and  her  maidens  had  hastened  dinner,  that  it 
might  be  over  sooner  than  usual. 

CHAPTER  LXXXII. — A  COACHMAN  WHO  LOVES  HIS  MASTER'S  SON. 

AND  little  Charles,  who  had  already  been  more  than  a  dozen  times  to  the 
coachman,  to  desire  him  to  make  haste  and  get  the  coach  ready,  ran  again  to  the 
stables  and  called  out:  "We  have  done  dinner,  Francis!  Put  to.  and  drive 
round  to  the  door,  directly." 

"You  are  mistaken,  young  master;  I  heard  the  dinner-bell  ring  just  now." 

Charles.  "  How  dare  you  say  I  am  mistaken?  I  will  not  bear  that,  old 
moustache ! " 

Francis.  "  Hold,  my  boy !  I  will  tench  you  to  call  me  moustache !  I  will 
plait  the  horses'  tails  and  manes,  and  put  on  the  ribands  and  the  rosettes,  and 
that  will  take  me  an  hour — and,  if  you  say  another  word,  I  will  tell  your  papa 
that  Herod  is  ill — See  how  he  shakes  his  head!  And  then  he  will  leave  the 


118  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

black  horses  in  the  stable  and  take  the  little  carriage,  and  you  can  not  go  with 
him." 

C harks.  "Xo,  no.  Francis!  Stop — don't  begin  to  plait  their  manes.  I  love 
you,  Francis!  and  will  not  call  you  moustache  any  more." 

Francis.  "You  must  give  me  a  kiss  then,  Charles,  in  my  beard;  or  I  will 
take  the  ribands  and  plait  them." 

Charles.     "  No,  don't  do  so,  pray." 

Francis.  "Why  did  you  call  me  moustache?  You  must  kiss  me,  or  I  will 
not  drive  the  black  horses." 

Chftrks.  "  Well,  then,  if  I  must !  But  you  will  get  the  coach  ready  very  soon 
then." 

Francis  put  down  the  curry-comb,  lifted  up  the  boy,  who  kissed  him ;  said : 
"  There's  a  good  little  fellow !  " — put  the  horses  to  the  coach,  and  drove  quickly 
round  to  the  hall-door. 

Arner  was  sitting  with  his  wife  and  children,  and  Charles  begged  his  papa  to 
let  him  ride  upon  the  coach-box  with  Francis.  "  It  is  so  hot  and  crowded 
inside." 

"With  all  my  heart,"  said  Arner;  and  called  out  to  Francis:  "Take  good 
care  of  him." 

CHAPTER  LXXXIII. — THE  SQUIRE  WITH  HIS  WORKMEN. 

AND  Francis  drove  his  spirited  horses  fast,  and  was  soon  on  the  plain  near 
Bonnal,  where  the  men  were  breaking  stones. 

Then  Amer  got  out  of  the  coach,  to  look  at  their  work,  and  he  found  all  the 
men  in  their  right  places. 

They  had  got  on  with  their  work  very  well  for  the  time. 

And  Arner  praised  the  regularity  and  good  appearance  of  the  work,  in  a 
manner  which  convinced  the  dullest  amongst  them,  that  the  slightest  irregularity 
.or  neglect  would  not  have  escaped  him. 

Leonard  was  very  glad  of  this,  for  he  thought  within  himself,  now  they  will 
all  see  that  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  allow  any  carelessness  or  neglect. 

Arner  asked  the  master  which  was  Hubel  Rudi;  and,  at  the  moment  Leon- 
ard pointed  him  out,  poor  Rudi,  who  was  pale  and  evidently  very  weak,  was 
raising  a  very  heavy  stone  with  his  iron  crow.  Arner  called  out  immediately  : 
"Do  not  overwork  yourselves,  my  good  fellows;  and  take  care  not  to  do  your- 
selves an  injury."  Then  he  ordered  the  master  to  give  them  each  a  glass  of 
wine,  and  went  toward  Bonnal. 

CHAPTER  LXXXIV. — A  SQUIRE  AND  A  PASTOK,  WHO  HAVE  EQUALLY  KIND  HEARTS. 

HE  soon  saw  the  good  pastor  coming  to  meet  him,  and  the  squire  ran  quickly 
toward  him,  and  called  out:  "You  should  nol  have  troubled  yourself  to  come 
out  such  weather  as  this?  It  is  not  right,  with  your  delicate"  health;  "  and  he 
then  went  into  the  house  with  him. 

There  he  told  him  the  whole  history  of  the  poulterer,  and  then  said:  "I  have 
some  business  to  transact,  but  will  be  quick  about  it,  that  we  may  enjoy  a  couple 
of  hours  quietly  together." 

He  sent  immediately  for  young  Meyer,  and  said  to  the  pastor:  "The  first 
step  shall  be  to  seal  up  all  the  bailiff's  accounts  and  books  of  reckoning;  for  I 
am  resolved  to  know  who  are  concerned  with  him,  and  he  shall  settle  with  them 
all,  in  my  presence." 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  UQ 

Pastor.  "  By  doing  this,  you  will  get  to  know  a  great  deal  about  the  people 
of  the  village." 

Squire.  "  And,  as  I  hope,  find  out  the  way  to  put  an  end  to  a  great  deal  of 
domestic  unhappiness ;  if  I  can  by  this  means  make  it  clear  and  evident  to  every 
man  how  irrevocably  people  ruin  themselves  when  they  get  ever  so  little  into 
debt  to  such  grasping  men  as  the  bailiff.  In  my  opinion,  my  good  friend,  the 
laws  do  too  little  against  this  ruinous  practice." 

Paslw.  "  No  law  can  do  so  much  to  counteract  it,  as  the  paternal  kindness 
of  the  lord  of  a  manor." 

CHAPTER  LXXXV. — THE  SQUIRE'S  FEELINGS  TOWARD  HIS  GUILTY  BAILIFF, 

As  they  were  speaking,  young  Meyer  arrived,  and  Arner  said  to  him :  "  Meyer, 
I  meaii  to  dismiss  my  bailiff;  but,  notwithstanding  his  offenses,  some  circum- 
stances lead  me  to  wish  him  to  receive,  for  life,  a  part  of  the  emolument  of  his 
office.  You  are  well  off  in  the  world,  Meyer !  and  I  think,  if  I  were  to  make 
you  bailiff,  you  would  willingly  allow  the  old  man  a  hundred  florins  yearly,  out 
of  your  salary." 

Meyer.  "If  your  honor  thinks  me  equal  to  the  situation,  I  shall  wish  in  this, 
as  to  every  other  respect,  to  do  according  to  your  pleasure." 

Arner.  "  Well  then,  Meyer,  come  to  me  to  Arnburg  to-morrow,  and  I  will 
arrange  this  business.  For  the  present,  I  will  only  tell  you  that  you  must  take 
my  secretary  and  Abi,  who  is  a  qualified  man,  with  you,  and  seal  up  all  Hum- 
mel's  writings  and  accounts.  You  must  carefully  see  after  it,  that  not  one  of 
his  papers  or  accounts  be  secreted." 

Immediately  young  Meyer  and  the  squire's  secretary  took  Abi  with  them,  and 
sealed  up  the  bailiff's  papers.  His  wife  went  with  a  wet  sponge  toward  the 
chalked  board ;  but  Meyer  saw  her,  and  hindered  her  from  touching  it,  and  had 
a  copy  of  it  taken  immediately. 

And  Meyer,  the  secretary,  and  Abi,  wondered  to  see  on  the  board :  "On 
Saturday,  18th,  to  Joseph,  Leonard's  man,  three  crowns."  "  What  was  this  for  ?  " 
said  they  to  the  bailiff  and  his  wife ;  but  they  gave  them  no  answer. 

And  when  the  men  arrived  at  the  parsonage-house,  with  the  copy  of  the 
board,  the  squire  also  wondered  at  the  three  crowns,  and  asked  the  men  if  they 
knew  the  meaning  of  it. 

"  We  inquired,  but  nobody  would  give  us  an  answer,"  replied  the  men. 

"I  will  soon  find  it  out,"  said  the  squire.  "  When  Flink  and  the  gaoler  come, 
tell  them  to  bring  the  bailiff  and  Hans  Wust  here." 

CHAPTER  LXXXVI. — THE  PASTOR  AGAIN  SHOWS  HIS  KINDNESS  OF  HEART. 

THE  good  pastor  had  no  sooner  heard  this,  than  he  slipped  out  of  the  room, 
went  to  the  tavern,  and  said  to  the  bailiff:  "  For  God's  sake  what  is  the  meaning 
of  these  three  crowns  to  Joseph  ?  It  will  be  a  double  misfortune  to  thee,  if 
thou  dost  not  tell  me.  The  squire  is  angry  about  it." 

Then  the  bailiff  sorrowfully  confessed  to  the  pastor,  the  whole  affair  about 
Joseph  and  the  money. 

And  the  pastor  went  immediately  back  to  Arner,  and  told  him  all,  and  how 
penitent!}^  the  bailiff  had  owned  it  to  him ;  and  he  again  entreated  the  squire  to 
be  merciful  toward  this  unhappy  man. 

"  Be  not  uneasy,  my  good  friend !  You  may  depend  upon  finding  me  humane 
and  compassionate  toward  him,"  said  Arner. 


120 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 


He  then  had  Joseph  taken  from  his  work,  and  brought  before  him,  with  "Wust 
and  the  bailiff. 

The  bailiff  trembled  like  an  aspen  leaf.  "Wust  appeared  very  sorrowful,  but 
composed  and  patient. 

But  Joseph  was  in  a  rage,  and  said  to  the  bailiff:  "  Thou  old  wretch,  this  is  all 
thy  fault." 

Arner  had  the  prisoners  brought,  one  after  the  other,  into  the  inner 
room  of  the  parsonage-house,  and  there  he  examined  them,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  Meyer,  Abi,  and  the  attorney.  And  when  the  secretary  had  writ- 
ten down  their  depositions,  word  for  word,  and  read  them  over  to  the 
prisoners,  and  these  had  again  repeated  and  confirmed  them,  he  had  them  all 
brought  to  the  place  where  the  parish-meetings  are  held,  under  the  lime-trees, 
and  ordered  the  bell  to  be  rung,  to  assemble  all  the  people. 

CHAPTER  LXXXVII. — ON  A  CHEERFUL  DISPOSITION,  AND  ON  GHOSTS. 

BUT  before  this,  the  squire  went  for  a  few  moments  into  the  other  room,  to  the 
pastor,  and  said:  "I  will  take  a  draught  of  something  to  refresh  me,  my  good 
friend.  For  I  mean  to  be  merry  with  the  people.  It  is  the  best  way  to  con- 
vince them  of  any  thing." 

"Nothing  is  more  certain,"  said  the  pastor. 

And  the  squire  made  him  pledge  him,  and  said:  "I  wish  all  clergymen  would 
learn  thus  to  go  amongst  the  people  in  a  straight-forward,  unceremonious  man- 
ner. When  people  see  a  man  good-humored,  and  with  an  open,  unrestrained 
manner,  they  are  half  won  already." 

"Alas,  sir!  "  said  the  pastor,  "this  cheerfulness,  and  open,  unrestrained  man- 
ner, are  exactly  what  we  are  least  allowed  to  practice." 

Squire.     "  It  is  a  misfortune,  belonging  to  your  situation,  reverend  sir." 

Pastor.  "  You  are  quite  right.  None  should  go  amongst  the  people  with  a 
more  unrestrained,  cheerful,  open  manner,  than  the  ministers  of  religion.  They 
should  be  the  friends  of  .the  people,  and  known  to  be  such.  They  should  be  in- 
fluenced by  a  regard  to  them  in  their  speech,  and  in  their  silence.  They  should 
carefully  consider  their  words,  and  yet  dispense  them  freely,  benevolently,  and 
to  the  purpose,  like  their  Master.  But,  alas !  they  form  themselves  in  other 
schools,  and  we  must  have  patience,  squire.  In  all  situations  of  life,  there  are 
many  impediments  to  the  practice  of  what  is  simple  and  natural." 

Squire.  "It  is  true.  In  all  ranks  people  wander  continually  further  and 
further  from  the  path  they  should  follow.  Much  time,  which  ought  to  be  em- 
ployed upon  important  duties,  is  wasted  upon  ceremonies  and  nonsense :  and 
there  are  few  men  who,  under  the  burthen  of  forms  of  etiquette  and  pedantry, 
preserve  due  attention  to  their  duties,  and  to  the  really  important  objects  of 
their  lives,  as  you  have  done,  my  dear  friend.  But,  by  your  side,  it  is  my  delight 
and  joy  to  feel  it  my  happy  destination  to  act  the  part  of  a  father,  and  I  will  en- 
deavor to  fulfill  it  with  a  pure  heart,  and,  like  you,  with  as  little  of  the  ceremony 
and  nonsense  of  the  world  as  possible." 

Pastor.     "  You  make  me  ashamed,  my  dear  sir." 

Squire.  "  I  feel  what  I  say !  but  the  bell  will  soon  ring.  I  am  impatient  for 
the  comedy  at  the  parish-meeting.  I  do  expect,  this  time,  to  cure  them  of  some 
of  their  superstitions." 

Pastor.  "  May  God  grant  you  success !  This  superstition  of  theirs,  interferes 
sadly  with  the  good  one  seeks  to  do  them." 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  J21 

Squire.  "I  find,  from  my  own  experience,  that  it  often  makes  them  very 
stupid,  timid,  and  irresolute." 

Pastor.  "It  warps  a  man's  understanding,  and  has  a  bad  effect  upon  all  he 
does,  and  says,  and  thinks.  And,  what  is  still  worse,  it  injures  his  heart,  and 
hardens  it  with  pride  and  uncharitableness." 

Squire.  "  Very  true.  There  is  a  wide  distinction  between  the  pure  simplicity 
of  nature,  and  the  blind  stupidity  of  superstition." 

Pastor.  "Yes.  The  uncorrupted  simplicity  of  nature  is  alive  to  every  im- 
pression of  truth  and  virtue :  it  is  like  a  blank  tablet.  But  the  stupidity  of 
superstition  is  like  melted  ore,  incapable  of  receiving  any  impression,  except 
from  fire  and  flame.  And  now  that  you  have  introduced  the  subject  of  this  dis- 
tinction, which  is  of  so  mtfch  importance  to  me,  in  my  avocation,  will  you  per- 
mit me  to  say  a  few  more  words  about  it  ?  " 

Squire.     "  Pray  do.     The  subject  is  very  interesting  to  me." 

Pastor.  "  Man,  in  the  uncorrupted  simplicity  of  his  nature,  knows  little ;  but 
what  he  does  know,  is  well  arranged.  His  attention  is  firmly  and  steadily 
directed  toward  what  is  useful  and  comprehensible  to  him.  He  does  not  seek 
to  know  what  he  can  neither  comprehend  nor  turn  to  use.  But  the  stupidity  of 
superstition  has  no  clear  arrangement  in  its  knowledge.  It  boasts  of  knowing 
what  it  neither  knows  nor  comprehends;  it  persuades  itself  that  the  disorder  of 
its  ideas  is  heavenly  illumination,  and  that  the  fleeting  splendor  of  its  airy 
bubbles  is  divine  light  and  wisdom. 

"  The  simple  innocence  of  nature,  makes  use  of  all  the  senses,  judges  nothing 
inconsiderately,  examines  every  thing  quietly  and  attentively,  endures  opposi- 
tion, earnestly  seeks  and  desires  what  is  necessary,  not  what  is  mere  matter  of 
speculation,  and  conducts  itself  peacefully,  gently,  kindly,  and  benevolently. 
But  superstition  believes  in  contradiction  to  its  own  senses,  and  to  the  senses  of 
mankind  ;  never  rests  but  in  the  triumph  of  its  own  obscurity,  and  rages  rudely, 
wildly,  and  unfeelingly,  wherever  it  exists. 

"  Man,  in  a  state  of  simplicity,  is  guided  by  his  uncorrupted  heart,  upon  which 
he  can  always  depend ;  and  by  his  senses,  which  he  uses  peacefully. 

"  But  the  superstitious  man  is  guided  by  his  opinions,  to  which  he  sacrifices 
his  feelings,  his  senses,  and  often  his  God,  his  country,  his  neighbor,  and  himself." 

Squire.  "Every  page  of  history  confirms  the  truth  of  your  statement;  and 
a  very  small  share  of  experience  and  knowledge  of  the  world,  is  sufficient  to 
convince  any  man  that  hardness  of  heart  and  superstition  are  inseparable  com- 
panions, and  always  followed  by  pernicious  and  grievous  consequences." 

Pastor.  "From  this  essential  difference  between  the  simplicity  of  the  honest, 
unprejudiced  man,  and  the  stupidity  of  the  superstitious  man,  it  appears  that  the 
best  method  of  opposing  superstition,  is:  'In  educating  the  poor,  to  ground  their 
knowledge  of  the  truth  upon  the  pure  feelings  of  innocence  and  love ;  and  to 
turn  their  attention  chiefly  to  the  surrounding  objects  which  interest  them  in 
their  individual  situations.' " 

Squire.  "I  understand  you,  my  good  friend!  and  I  think,  with  you,  that  by 
this  means  superstition  and  prejudice  would  lose  their  sting,  their  hurtfulness, 
and  their  accordance  with  the  passions  and  desires  of  wicked  hearts,  and  with 
the  groundless  terrors  and  weak  fancies  of  a  busy,  speculative  knowledge. 

"  And  thus  all  that  would  remain  of  prejudice  and  superstition  would  be  but 
empty  words,  and  shades  of  things  without  inward  poison,  and  these  would  die 
away  of  themselves." 


122  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

Pastor.  "  It  appears  to  me  in  the  same  light.  The  education  of  the  poor 
should  be  founded  upon  clear  ideas,  surrounding  objects,  and  the  cautious  develop- 
ment of  the  impulses  of  human  nature ;  because  these  are,  undoubtedly,  the 
foundation  of  true  human  wisdom. 

"  To  fix  the  attention  strongly  upon  speculative  opinions  and  distant  objects, 
and  feebly  upon  our  duties,  our  actions,  and  the  objects  which  surround  us,  is  to 
create  disorder  in  the  soul  of  man.  It  leads  to  ignorance  about  our  most  im- 
portant affairs,  and  to  a  foolish  predilection  for  information  and  knowledge,  which 
do  not  concern  us. 

"  Eoughness  and  hardness  of  heart  are  the  natural  consequences  of  all  pride 
and  presumption ;  and  the  source  of  the  inward  poison  of  superstition  and  prej- 
udice is  clearly  derived  from  this :  that  in  the  education  of  the  people,  their  at- 
tention is  not  steadily  turned  to  the  circumstances  and  objects  around  them, 
which  have  a  strong  and  near  relation  to  their  individual  situation,  and  would 
lead  their  hearts  to  pure  and  tender  feelings  of  humanity  upon  all  occasions. 

"If  people  sought  thus  to  instruct  them,  as  earnestly  and  zealously  as  they 
do  to  teach  them  particular  opinions,  superstition  would  be  torn  up  by  the  roots, 
and  deprived  of  all  its  power;  but  I  feel  daily,  more  and  more,  how  little  we  are 
advanced  in  this  good  work." 

Squire.  "  In  the  world  all  is  comparatively  true,  or  not  true.  There  have 
been  rude  times — times  when  a  man  who  did  not  believe  in  ghosts  was  esteemed 
a  heretic ;  times  when  a  man  was  obliged,  on  pain  of  forfeiting  his  rights  and 
his  situation  of  judge,  to  order  old  women  to  the  rack,  to  make  them  confess 
their  dealings  with  the  devil." 

Pastor.  "God  be  praised,  those  times  are  gone  by;  but  much  of  the  old 
leaven  still  remains." 

Squire.  "Yet,  be  of  good  cheer,  my  friend!  One  stone  after  another  falls 
away  from  the  temple  of  superstition ;  and  it  would  be  well  if  people  were  only 
as  zealous  to  build  up  the  temple  of  God,  as  they  are  to  overthrow  that  of 
superstition ! " 

Pastor.  "There  again  we  are  wanting:  and  this  checks  and  destroys  my 
rejoicing  in  the  attacks  made  upon  superstition ;  because  I  see  that  those  who 
are  so  active  against  it,  trouble  themselves  very  little  about  upholding  religion, 
the  sanctuary  of  God,  in  its  strength." 

Squire  "It  is  too  true.  But  in  all  revolutions  people  will  always  begin  by 
rejecting  good  and  bad  together.  They  were  in  the  right  to  purify  the  Lord's 
temple ;  but  they  will  soon  perceive  that,  in  their  zeal,  they  have  injured  the 
walls,  and  then  they  will  return  and  repair  them  again." 

Pastor.  "  1  trust  it  will  be  so  I  and,  indeed,  I  see  myself  that  people  begin 
to  feel  that  destructive  iireligion  strikes  at  the  root  of  human  happiness." 

Squire.  "We  must  now  go;  and  I  will  make  one  attempt  this  very  day  to 
attack  superstition,  and  overthrow  the  belief  in  ghosts  which  exists  in  Bonnal." 

Pastor.  "  May  you  be  successful !  I  have  as  yet  been  able  to  do  very  little 
against  it  by  my  arguments  and  preaching." 

Squire.  "  I  will  not  attempt  it  by  words.  My  poulterer  must  spare  me  that 
trouble,  with  his  basket  and  lantern,  his  pickaxe  and  mattock." 

Pastor.  "  I  really  believe  it  will  succeed  admirably.  It  is  certain  that,  when 
people  know  well  how  to  turn  such  accidents  to  advantage,  they  may  do  more 
by  means  of  them  in  a  moment,  than  they  can  in  half  a  century  by  all  the  arts 
of  eloquence." 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 


CHAPTER  LXXXVIII. — ON  GHOSTS,  IN  A  DIFFERENT  TONE. 

IN  the  mean  time  the  country  people  were  all  assembled  at  the  place  of  meet- 
ing. Yesterday's  adventure,  and  the  report  of  the  prisoners,  brought  them  to- 
gether in  crowds.  The  alarming  appearance  of  the  devil  had  greatly  agitated 
them,  and  they  had  already,  early  that  morning,  taken  council  together  what  was 
to  be  done  under  the  circumstances,  and  had  come  to  a  resolution  that  the  pas- 
tor ought  no  longer  to  be  allowed  to  teach  and  preach  so  incredulously,  and  to 
laugh  at  all  stories  of  ghosts.  They  determined  to  request  Hartknopf,  the 
church- warden,  to  make  a  proposal  to  this  effect  at  the  meeting ;  but  young 
Meyer  was  against  this,  and  said :  "  I  can  not  agree  that  the  old  miser,  who 
starves  his  own  children,  and  is  constantly  hunting  about  for  all  sorts  of  refuse, 
should  speak  for  us.  It  will  be  an  eternal  shame  for  us  to  appoint  such  a 
hypocrite." 

The  men  answered :  "  We  know  well  enough  that  he  is  a  hypocrite  and  a 
miser,  and  we  know  that  the  way  in  which  he  and  his  maid-servant  live  together 
is  scandalous.  It  is  true,  also,  that  we  have  not  such  a  liar  amongst  us,  nor  one 
who  encroaches  so  much  upon  his  neighbor's  land,  or  clears  his  field  so  carefully 
at  harvest-time ;  but  then,  there  is  not  one  of  us  who  can  talk  to  a  minister,  or 
discuss  spiritual  matters,  as  he  can.  If  you  can  tell  us  of  any  one,  who  will  do 
it  only  half  so  well,  we  will  be  content."  But  Meyer  knew  of  nobody. 

So  the  men  made  their  request  to  the  church- warden,  in  these  words :  "  Hart- 
knopf, you  are  the  man  amongst  us  who  best  knows  how  to  answer  a  clergy- 
man ;  and  when  the  squire  holds  the  meeting  to-day,  we  wish  you  to  make  a 
complaint  against  the  pastor,  on  account  of  his  unbelief,  and  to  ask  for  the  ap- 
pointment of  a  day  of  prayer,  on  account  of  the  fearful  appearance  of  Satan." 

Tliey  did  not  talk  to  him  publicly  about  this,  but  the  cleverest  amongst  them 
explained  the  business  to  him ,-  for  the  pastor  had  many  friends  amongst  the 
poorer  part  of  them.  Some  of  the  richer  country  people  disliked  him  the  more 
on  this  account,  particularly  since  he  had  maintained,  in  one  of  his  morning  dis- 
courses, that  it  was  not  right  in  them  to  oppose  the  division  of  a  waste  com- 
mon, which  the'  squire  had  proposed  for  the  advantage  of  the  poor. 

The  church- warden  Hartknopf,  accepted  the  appointment,  and  said :  "  You 
have  given  me  rather  late  notice  of  this,  but  I  will  study  the  proposition ;  "  and 
he  went  away  to  his  own  house,  and  thought  over  what  he  had  to  say,  from 
morning  until  evening,  when  the  bell  rang  for  the  meeting.  "When  those  who 
were  in  the  plot  were  all  assembled  together,  they  wondered  why  he  did  not 
join  them,  and  could  not  imagine  what  kept  him  away.  Then  Nickel  Spitz 
said:  "He  is  only  waiting  till  you  go  in  form  to  fetch  him." 

"  What  is  to  be  done  ?  "  said  the  men.  "  We  must  e'en  do  as  the  simpleton 
wishes,  or  he  will  not  come." 

So  they  sent  three  of  their  officers  to  fetch  him ;  and  these  soon  returned  with 
him. 

The  churchwarden  saluted  the  people,  with  as  much  dignity  as  if  he  had  been 
a  pastor ;  and,  with  great  importance  and  gravity,  assured  all  those  who  had 
entered  into  the  agreement,  that  he  had  now  studied  the  proposition. 

In  the  mean  time,  Arner  had  told  the  poulterer  that,  when  he  made  a  signal, 
by  taking  a  large  white  handkerchief  out  of  his  pocket,  he  must  come  forth,  and 
do  all  that  they  had  agreed  upon  together. 


124  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

Then  he  went  with  the  pastor  and  the  secretary  to  the  meeting. 

All  the  people  stood  up,  and  welcomed  the  worthy  squire  and  the  reverend 
pastor. 

Arner  thanked  them  with  paternal  kindness,  and  then  told  the  men  to  sit 
down  upon  benches,  that  all  might  be  done  in  proper  order. 

Theresa  and  the  pastor's  wife,  and  the  children  and  servants,  from  the  hall  and 
the  parsonage-house,  stood  in  the  churchyard,  from  whence  they  could  see  what 
passed  at  the  meeting. 

Arner  now  ordered  the  prisoners  to  be  brought  forth,  one  after  the  other,  and 
their  depositions  to  be  read  in  their  presence. 

And  when  they  had  confirmed  them  before  the  meeting,  he  told  the  bailiff  to 
kneel  down  and  hear  his  sentence,  and  addressed  him  as  follows : — 

CHAPTER  LXXXIX. — A  JUDGMENT. 
"  UNHAPPY  MAN  ! 

"  It  grieves  me  to  the  heart,  to  pronounce  against  thee,  in  thy  old  age,  the 
doom  which  must  follow  evil  deeds  like  thine.  Thou  hast  deserved  death;  not 
because  Hubel  Rudi's  meadow  or  my  landmark  are  worth  a  man's  life,  but  be- 
cause perjury  and  daring  robbery  bring  innumerable  dangers  and  evils  upon  a 
country. 

"The  perjured  man  and  the  robber  becomes  a  murderer,  when  circumstances 
tempt  him  to  it;  and  is  already  a  murderer  in  many  senses,  through  the  conse- 
quences of  the  error,  suspicion,  distress,  and  misery,  which  he  occasions. 

"  Therefore,  tliou  hast  deserved  death. 

"  I  will,  however,  spare  thy  life,  in  consideration  of  thy  old  age,  and  because 
a  part  of  thy  crimes  were  committed  against  myself,  individually. 

"  This  is  thy  punishment : — 

"  Thou  shalt  this  day,  in  the  presence  of  appointed  persons  and  of  all  who 
wish  to  accompany  thee,  be  carried  to  the  landmark,  and  there,  in  chains,  re- 
place every  thing  as  it  was  before. 

"  Thence  tliou  shalt  be  taken  to  the  village  prison,  when  the  pastor  will  ex- 
amine thee,  for  the  space  of  fourteen  days,  about  thy  past  life,  that  the  causes 
of  thy  great  recklessness  and  hardness  of  heart  may  be  clearly  and  evidently 
discerned:  and  I  will  myself  use  my  utmost  endeavors  to  discover  the  circum- 
stances which  have  led  thee  to  these  crimes,  and  which  may  lead  others  of  my 
dependants  into  similar  misfortunes. 

"  After  this  fortnight  is  expired,  the  pastor  will,  on  the  Sunday  following, 
openly,  before  the  whole  community,  relate  the  history  of  thy  past  life,  of  the 
disorders  of  thy  house,  thy  hardness  of  heart,  thy  contempt  of  oaths  and  duties, 
and  thy  way  of  keeping  accounts  against  the  poor  and  rich — and  the  whole 
must  be  confirmed  by  thy  own  confession. 

"I  will  myself  be  present;  and,  with  the  assistance  of  the  pastor,  will  en- 
deavor to  preserve  my  dependents  from  such  dangers  in  future,  and  to  provide 
them  with  assistance  and  counsel  against  all  such  sources  and  causes  of  domes- 
tic misery. 

"And  with  this  I  would  willingly  discharge  thee,  were  my  people  sufficiently 
peaceable  and  well  brought  up  to  follow  after  the  truth  and  what  pertains  to 
their  temporal  and  eternal  welfare,  for  their  own  sake,  and  not  from  the  fear  of 
severe,  painful,  and  loathsome  punishment;  but,  with  so  many  rude,  uncontrolled, 
and  boisterous  people,  as  are  still  amongst  us,  it  is  necessary  for -me  to  add: — 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  J25 

"  That  the  executioner  must  conduct  thee  to-morrow  under  the  gallows  at  Bon- 
nal, and  there  bind  thy  right  hand  to  a  stake,  and  mark  the  first  three  fingers 
with  an  indelible  black  stain. 

"  But  it  is  my  express  desire,  that  no  man  imbitter  this  thy  hour  of  suffering, 
by  jest  or  laughter,  or  any  mark  of  redicule ;  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  all  the 
people  look  on,  without  noise  or  speech,  and  with  their  heads  uncovered." 

The  squire  then  condemned  Hans  Wust  to  eight  days'  punishment  in  prison. 
And  Joseph,  as  being  a  stranger,  he  immediately  expelled  from  his  territories, 
and  forbade  him  to  labor  or  to  appear  upon  his  land  any  more,  on  pain  of  being 
sent  to  the  house  of  correction. 

In  the  mean  time  the  pastor's  god-father,  Hans  Kenold,  had  secretly  told  him 
what  the  country  people  had  settled  with  the  church- warden,  and  that  they  would 
certainly  and  without  doubt  attack  him  on  account  of  his  unbelief. 

The  pastor  thanked  Renold,  and  told  him,  laughingly,  not  to  be  uneasy ;  the 
thing  would  not  end  ill. 

"  This  is  excellent,"  said  the  squire,  to  whom  the  pastor  told  this,  "  that  they 
should  themselves  begin  the  game :  "  and,  whilst  he  was  speaking,  the  church- 
warden got  up  and  said  : — 

CHAPTER  xc. — THE  PROPOSAL  OF  HARTKNOPF,  THE  CHURCH-WARDEN. 
"HONORED  SIR! 

"  May  I  be  permitted,  in  the  name  of  your  faithful  people  of  Bonnal,  to  state 
to  you  an  affair  of  conscience?  " 

Arner  answered :  "  I  am  ready  to  hear.  "Who  are  you  ?  "What  have  you  to 
say?" 

The  church-warden  replied :  "I  am  Jacob  Christopher  Frederick  Hartknopf, 
church- warden  and  elder  of  Bonnal,  and  fifty-six  years  of  age.  And  the  princi- 
pal people  of  the  village,  being  themselves  inexperienced  and  unaccustomed  to 
speak  upon  spiritual  subjects,  have  chosen  and  requested  me  to  lay  a  statement 
before  you." 

Arner.     "Now  then,  Mr.  Church-warden  Hartknopf,  to  the  point." 

Then  the  church- warden  began  again: — 
"HONORED  SIR! 

"We  have  received  from  our  forefathers  a  belief  that  the  devil  and  his  spirits 
often  appear  to  men ;  and,  since  it  is  now  become  very  evident  that  this  our  old 
belief  in  spirits  is  true,  as  indeed  we  never  for  a  moment  doubted  it  to  be,  we 
are  compelled  to  take  the  liberty  of  informing  your  honor,  that  our  reverend 
pastor  (may  God  forgive  him,)  is  not  of  this  belief.  We  well  know  that  your 
honor  is  of  the  same  opinion  with  the  pastor  on  this  subject.  But  since,  in 
sacred  things,  we  must  obey  God  rather  than  man,  we  hope  your  honor  will 
forgive  our  freedom,  when  we  entreat  that  the  reverend  pastor  may,  in  future, 
teach  our  children  our  old  belief,  about  the  appearance  of  the  devil,  and  that  he 
may  say  nothing  to  them  against  ghosts,  in  which  we  believe,  and  will  continue 
to  believe.  It  is  also  our  wish,  that  some  Sunday,  at  no  great  distance,  may  be 
fixed  upon  for  a  day  of  fasting,  and  prayer,  and  humiliation ;  that  we  may  all, 
upon  an  appointed  day,  penitently  implore  forgiveness,  in  dust  and  ashes,  for  the 
increasing  sin  of  want  of  belief  in  spirits." 

The  squire  and  the  pastor,  though  they  were  scarcely  able  to  restrain  their 
laughter  till  he  had  finished,  yet  heard  him  with  all  possible  patience. 

But  the  country  people  rejoiced  in  their  hearts  over  this  discourse,  and  re- 


126  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

solved  to  accompany  this  able  orator  home,  by  hundreds,  though  they  had  sent 
only  three  to  fetch  him. 

They  now  rose  up  on  ah1  sides,  and  said:  "  Honored  sir  1  we  all  agree  in  what 
the  church-warden  has  declared." 

But  the  poor,  and  all  those  who  loved  the  pastor,  were  very  sorry  and  grieved 
about  it,  and  said  here  and  there  to  each  other:  "If  he  had  only  the  luck  to 
believe  like  other  people — he  is  such  an  excellent  man !  "  But  these  durst  not 
speak  out.  so  that  his  enemies  triumphed. 

CHAPTER  xci.— THE  SQUIRE'S  REPLY. 

THE  squire  took  off  his  hat,  looked  earnestly  around  him,  and  said : — 

"  Neighbors !  you  had  no  need  of  an  orator  for  such  nonsense  as  this.  The 
whole  affair,  and  the  appearance  of  the  devil,  is  all  a  mistake ;  and  your  pastor 
is  one  of  the  wisest  of  ministers.  You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  insulting  him 
through  such  a  poor  blockhead  as  your  church-warden.  If  you  had  a  proper 
regard  for  his  learning  and  judgment,  you  would  be  wiser,  lay  aside  your  belief 
in  old  women's  tales,  and  not  seek  to  restrain  intelligent  people  to  foolish  opin- 
ions, which  are  entirely  without  foundation." 

Here  the  country  people  all  exclaimed:  "But  it  was  only  last  night  that  the 
devil  appeared  to  the  bailiff,  and  sought  to  lay  hold  of  him." 

Squire.  "You  are  mistaken,  neighbors;  and  before  supper-tune  you  will  be 
ashamed  of  your  credulity.  But  I  hope  you  are  not  all  equally  hardened  in 
your  folly.  Meyer !  are  you  also  of  the  opinion,  that  it  is  past  all  doubt  that  it 
was  the  devil  who  frightened  the  bailiff  so  terribly  upon  the  hill?  " 

Young  Meyer  answered:  "What  do  I  know  about  the  matter,  your  honor?  " 

The  church-warden  and  many  of  the  men  were  angry  at  Meyer  for  answer- 
ing thus. 

And  the  church- warden  muttered  over  the  bench  to  him:  "How  canst  thou 
talk  so  against  thy  knowledge  and  conscience,  Meyer  ?  "  But  many  of  the  men 
exclaimed:  "We  all  heard  the  horrible  voice  of  the  pursuing  devil." 

Squire.  "I  know  very  well  that  you  heard  a  shout,  and  a  roaring,  and  a 
rattling.  But  how  can  you  tell  that  all  this  was  the  devil  ?  Might  it  not  be  a 
man,  or  several  men,  who,  unluckily  for  the  bailiff,  who  seems  to  have  been 
there  at  an  improper  time,  wished  to  frighten  him  ?  The  wood  is  scarcely  ever 
without  somebody  in  it,  and  the  high  road  is  near,  so  that  it  may  as  easily  have 
been  men  as  the  devil." 

Countrymen.  "  Twenty  or  thirty  men  could  not  have  made  such  a  noise ;  and, 
if  your  honor  had  been  there  and  heard  it,  you  would  never  have  thought  of  its 
being  men." 

Squire.  "  Night  is  deceitful,  neighbors !  and,  when  people  are  once  frightened, 
they  see  and  hear  double." 

Countrymen.     "  It  is  of  no  use  to  talk  of  being  mistaken.     It  is  impossible." 

Squire.     "  But  I  tell  you  it  is  altogether  certain  that  you  were  mistaken." 

Countrymen.  "  No,  please  your  honor,  it  is  entirely  certain  that  we  were  not 
mistaken." 

Squire.  "I  have  a  great  notion  I  could  convince  you  that  you  were  mis- 
taken." 

Countrymen.     "  We  should  like  to  see  that,  your  honor." 

Squire.     "  Many  things  would  be  more  difficult." 

Countrymen.     "  Your  honor  is  joking." 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  127 

Squire.  "No,  I  am  not  joking.  If  you  think  I  can  not  do  it,  I  will  try. 
And  if  you  will  agree  to  divide  the  common,  I  will  perform  my  promise,  and 
convince  you  that  all  the  roaring  and  rattling  was  made  by  one  man." 

Countrymen.     "  That  is  impossible." 

Squire.     "  Will  you  venture  it  ?  " 

Countrymen.  "Yes,  sir,  we  willl  We  durst  venture  two  commons  upon  it, 
that  you  will  not  be  able  to  prove  this." 

Here  there  arose  a  murmur  amongst  the  countrymen.  Some  of  them  said : 
"People  should  take  care  what  they  promise."  Others  replied:  "He  can  no 
more  prove  this,  than  that  the  devil  will  go  to  heaven !  "  Others  again  said :  "  We 
have  nothing  to  fear;  he  must  give  it  up.  We  will  venture;  he  can  never 
prove  it." 

Countrymen  (aloud.)  "Yes,  squire;  if  you  will  keep  your  word;  speak  on. 
We  are  content  that  if  you  can  prove  what  you  say,  that  one  man  made  the 
noise  we  heard  yesterday,  we  will  divide  the  common.  That  is  to  say,  if  you 
can  prove  it  entirely  to  our  satisfaction ;  not  otherwise." 

The  squire  took  out  a  large  white  handkerchief,  gave  the  poulterer  the  signal, 
and  said  to  the  men:  "  I  must  have  a  quarter  of  an  hour  for  preparation.  " 

The  people  smiled  all  around,  and  said:    "Till  to-morrow,  squire,  if  you  will." 

The  squire  said  not  a  word  in  answer  to  their  rudeness ;  but  those  who  were 
in  the  churchyard,  and  could  see  the  poulterer  approaching  the  place  of  meeting, 
laughed  heartily. 

The  men  anticipated  some  mischance  when  they  heard  the  bursts  of  laughter, 
and  saw  the  stranger,  with  his  dark  basket  and  lantern,  drawing  near. 

"  What  fool  is  this,  who  walks  with  a  lighted  lantern  in  broad  daylight  ?  " 
said  they. 

Arner  answered:  "It  is  my  poulterer  from  Arnheim! "  and  called  out  to  him  : 
"  Christopher,  what  is  your  business  here  ?  " 

"  I  have  a  tale  to  tell,  please  your  honor." 

"With  all  my  heart,"  answered  Arner. 

Then  the  poulterer  set  down  his  basket,  and  said : — 

CHAPTER  xcn. — SPEECH  OF  THE  POULTERER  TO  THE  MEETING. 

"HONORED  sir,  reverend  pastor,  and  you  neighbors,  here  are  the  pickaxe,  the 
mattock,  the  spade,  the  brandy-bottle,  the  tobacco-pipe,  and  the  cocked  hat  of  your 
bailiff,  which,  in  his  fright,  he  left  by  the  landmark  last  night,  when  I  drove  him 
away  from  his  work  on  the  hill." 

Countrymen.  "And  are  we  to  believe  that  it  was  you  who  made  all  the  noise  ? 
That  can  never  be.  The  proof  is  not  sufficient ;  we  beg  for  another." 

Squire.  "  Wait  a  little  longer.  He  has  a  lantern  by  his  side.  Perhaps  it  may 
enlighten  you  a  little."  And  then  he  added,  loudly  and  very  seriously :  "  Be  silent, 
if  you  please,  till  he  has  finished  what  he  has  to  say." 

The  men  obeyed. 

Then  the  poulterer  continued :  "  You  are  not  so  civil  as  people  usually  are  in  this 
country.  Why  don't  you  let  me  finish  ?  Remember  the  poulterer  of  Arnheim. 
If  you  do  not  hear  every  word  I  have  to  say,  the  next  newspaper  will  be  full 
of  you ;  for  there  is  not  a  syllable  of  truth  in  the  devil's  having  appeared  to  the 
bailiff.  It  was  I  who  frightened  him !  I,  the  poulterer,  just  as  I  now  stand  before 
you,  with  this  basket,  and  this  new  black  goat-skin,  which  I  had  put  over  my 
basket,  because  it  rained  yesterday,  and  I  had  hung  the  lantern  before  the  basket, 


128  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

as  you  saw  it  when  I  came  here.  I  filled  it  full  of  oil  at  Hirzau,  that  it  might 
burn  well ;  for  it  was  very  dark,  and  the  road,  as  you  well  know,  is  bad  near 
Hirzau.  At  eleven  o'clock  I  was  in  the  tavern  at  Hirzau.  I  can  bring  the  land- 
lord, and  at  least  ten  men  more,  who  were  there,  to  prove  this.  As  I  came  over 
the  top  of  the  hill,  it  struck  twelve  at  Bonnal ;  and  then  I  heard  the  bailiff,  not  half 
a  stone's  throw  from  the  high-road,  swearing  and  working  away ;  and,  as  I  knew 
him  immediately  by  his  voice  and  his  swearing,  I  began  to  wonder  what  he  was 
doing  there  at  that  hour  of  night.  I  half  suspected  that  he  was  searching  for 
hidden  treasures,  and  that  he  might  share  them  with  me  if  I  hit  the  right  time. 
I  followed  the  noise.  But  the  bailiff,  it  seems,  had  yesterday,  contrary  to  his 
usual  custom,  drunk  rather  more  than  was  necessary;  for,  the  moment  he  beheld 
me,  he  took  me — a  poor  sinful  man — for  the  devil  in  a  bodily  form !  and  when 
I  saw  that  he  was  about  removing  a  landmark  in  our  master's  wood,  I  thought  to 
myself:  come,  he  deserves  to  be  frightened.  I  will  make  him  think  hell  is  gaping 
for  him !  So  I  bound  the  mattock,  pickaxe,  spade,  and  my  walking-stick,  all  to- 
gether, dragged  them  down  the  hill,  over  the  stones,  after  me,  and  shouted  out, 
with  all  my  might :  Oh ! — Ah ! — Uh ! — bai — liff ! — thou  art  mine !  Hum — mel ! 
And  I  was  not  more  than  a  stone's  throw  from  you,  when  you  crept  out  softly  and 
cautiously  with  your  torches,  to  the  bailiff's  assistance.  But  as  I  had  no  wish  to 
frighten  innocent  folks  with  making  a  noise  so  near  them,  I  gave  over,  and  went 
up  the  hill  again,  with  my  booty,  to  my  basket,  and  then  took  the  nearest  way 
home.  It  was  a  quarter  past  two  when  our  watchman  met  me,  and  asked  why 
I  was  carrying  workmen's  tools  upon  my  egg-basket. 

"I  forget  what  I  answered,' but  certainly  nothing  to  the  purpose;  for  I  did  not 
wish  to  say  any  thing  of  it,  till  I  had  told  the  squire  my  story ;  which  I  did  at  six 
o'clock  this  morning. 

:  "  And  now,  neighbors,  how  do  you  think  1  could  come  by  this  story  and  these 
tools  so  early,  if  what  I  tell  you  is  not  true  ?  " 

Some  of  the  countrymen  scratched  their  heads,  others  laughed. 

The  poulterer  continued:  "If  such  a  thing  should  happen  to  you  again,  neigh- 
bors, let  me  just,  in  a  friendly  way,  advise  the  watchman,  the  authorities,  and 
all  the  honorable  commonalty  of  Bonnal,  to  let  loose  the  greatest  dog  in  the  village, 
and  he  will  soon  discover  the  devil." 

The  poulterer  here  ceased,  and  there  was  a  general  murmur  on  every  side. 

CHAPTER  xcm. — THE  POOR  ARE  GAINERS  BY  THE  COMEDY. 

Some  countrymen.     "It  is  as  he  says,  by  G — !  all  the  circumstances  agree." 

Other  countrymen.     "  What  a  set  of  fools  we  were." 

Kunz.     "I  wanted  to  run  after  the  rogue." 
•    Some  of  the  leaders.     "  If  we  had  only  not  staked  the  common  upon  it." 

The  rich  countrymen.     "  This  is  a  cursed  business." 

The  poor.     "  Heaven  be  praised  for  it." 

Theresa.     "The  master-stroke  of  all,  is  getting  the  common  divided." 
.    Pastor's  wife.     "  The  whole  is  a  master-stroke." 

The  church-warden.  "It  is  enough  to  make  the  very  stones  weep  blood !  Our 
belief  is  lost  for  ever.  Elias!  Elias!  Fire  from  heaven." 

The  children  (from  the  churchyard.)  "  Thou  art  mine !— Oh !— Ah !— Uh  I— 
bailiff!  " 

The  pastor.     "  I  never  saw  the  people  so  much  moved." 

The  bailiff.     "  Am  I  in  a  dream,  or  awake  ?     All  was  a  mistake,  and  I  must  go 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  129 

under  the  gallows.  And  yet  I  feel  no  anger ;  no  desire  of  vengeance  rages 
within  me." 

Thus  in  a  general  murmur  did  every  man  speak  according  to  his  own 
feelings. 

After  a  while  Arner  stood  up,  smiled,  and  said :  "  How  are  you  now  inclined 
about  the  fast-day,  on  account  of  the  fearful  appearance  of  the  devil  upon  the 
hill?" 

Do  what  is  right !  Love  God ! 

And  fear  God,  but  neither  man  nor  devil. 

This  is  the  old  and  true  belief;  and  your  stories  of  apparitions  and  spirits  are  idle 
follies,  which  ruin  your  heads  and  hearts. 

"Now  at  last  the  division  of  your  common  is  agreed  upon,  and  you  will  find, 
in  a  few  years,  how  useful  and  beneficial  it  will  be  to  your  children  and  grand- 
children, and  how  much  reason  I  had  to  wish  for  it  so  earnestly.  I  have  ordered 
some  drink  to  be  brought  to  you.  Drink  it  to  my  health,  and  to  the  health  of 
your  numerous  poor,  who,  in  the  division  of  the  common,  will  receive  no  more 
than  the  rest ;  but  to  whom  it  will  be  a  treasure,  because  they  have  nothing 
besides.  There  is  not  one  of  you  who  knows  how  much  his  children  may  stand 
in  need  of  it." 

Then  Arner  left  the  meeting,  and  told  Hubel  Rudi  to  follow  him,  in  a  quarter 
of  an  hour,  to  the  parsonage-house. 

And  the  squire  and  the  pastor  went  to  theif  wives  in  the  churchyard,  and  after- 
ward, with  them,  to  the  parsonage-house. 

The  pastor  praised  Arner  for  the  wisdom  and  humanity  with  which  he  had 
treated  his  flock,  and  said  to  him :  "I  shall  never  again  urge  you  to  show  forbear- 
ance and  compassion  toward  any  body,  for  your  own  benevolent  heart  has  ex- 
ceeded all  I  could  have  asked  or  advised." 

CHAPTER  xciv. — THE  SQUIRE  THANKS  THE  PASTOR. 

THE  squire  replied :  "  Say  no  more,  my  dear  friend,  I  beseech  you.  I  go  straight 
to  the  point,  and  am  as  yet  young  and  without  experience.  But,  with  God's  assist- 
ance, I  hope  to  learn  how  to  manage  things  better.  I  am  truly  rejoiced  that  you 
approve  of  my  decisions.  But  you  must  not  imagine  that  I  am  not  aware  that 
your  exertions  have  been  much  greater  than  mine,  and  that  your  care  and  kind- 
ness had  prepared  every  thing,  so  that  little  remained  for  me,  but  to  pronounce 
the  sentence." 

Pastor.     " My  dear  sir,  you  go  too  far!  " 

Squire.  "  No,  my  friend.  It  is  the  simple  truth,  and  I  should  be  indeed  un- 
thankful and  unjust,  if  I  did  not  acknowledge  it.  You  have  labored  with  great 
care  and  intelligence  to  throw  light  upon  my  dear  grandfather's  inconsiderate 
decisions,  and  to  put  an  end  to  their  consequences.  That  good  and  upright  man 
will  rejoice,  in  heaven,  over  what  you  have  done,  and  that  the  evil  has  at  last 
been  remedied ;  and  he  certainly  would  not  forgive  me,  if  I  were  to  leave  your 
goodness  unrewarded.  Here  are  the  deeds  of  a  small  piece  of  land  in  your  vil- 
lage, which  I  hope  you  will  accept  as  a  testimony  of  my  gratitude." 

Thus  saying,  he  gave  him  a  sealed  deed  of  gift,  which  was  expressed  with  the 
greatest  warmth  of  gratitude. 

Theresa  stood  by  Arner's  side,  and  presented  the  pastor  with  the  most  beau- 
tiful nosegay  ever  seen  in  a  parsonage-house. 

"This  is  in  remembrance  of  the  best  of  grandfathers,  reverend  sir,"  said  she. 

24 


130  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

And  in  the  morning  the  pastor's  wife  discovered,  for  the  first  time,  that  it  was 
bound  together  by  a  string  of  pearls. 

The  good  pastor  was  much  overcome :  tears  filled  his  eyes,  and  he  could 
not  speak. 

"Say  not  a  word  about  it,"  added  the  squire. 

"  Your  heart  is  worthy  of  a  kingdom  I  "  said  the  pastor  at  last. 

"  Do  not  make  me  blush,  my  dear  sir,"  answered  the  squire.  "  Be  my  friend; 
and,  hand  in  hand,  let  us.  strive  to  make  our  people  as  happy  as  we  can.  I  hope 
to  see  more  of  you  in  future,  and  you  will  come  more  to  me,  will  you  not?  My 
carriage  is  always  at  your  service.  Send  for  it,  without  ceremony,  whenever 
you  like  to  come  to  me." 

CHAPTER  xcv. — THE  SQUIRE  ASKS  FORGIVENESS  FROM  A  POOR  MAN,  WHOM  HIS 

GRANDFATHER  HAD   INJURED. 

IN  the  mean  time  Hubel  Rudi  arrived,  and  the  squire  held  out  his  hand  to  the 
poor  man,  and  said :  "  Eudi !  my  grandfather  did  you  injustice,  and  deprived  you 
of  your  meadow  by  his  decision.  It  was  a  misfortune.  He  was  deceived.  You 
must  forgive  him,  and  not  bear  malice  against  him." 

Rudi  answered :  "  Alas !  your  honor !  I  knew  very  well  that  it  was  not  his 
fault." 

"  Did  you  never  hate  him  for  it?"  said  the  squire. 

Rudi.  "In  my  poverty,  and  particularly  at  first,  I  was  indeed  often  very 
much  troubled  that  I  had  not  the  meadow  any  longer ;  but  I  never  felt  hatred 
toward  his  honor." 

Squire.     "  Is  this  really  true,  Rudi  ?  " 

Rudi.  "It  is,  indeed,  your  honor!  God  knows  that  it  is,  and  that  I  never 
could  feel  angry  with  him.  I  knew  in  my  heart  that  it  was  not  his  fault.  What 
could  he  do,  when  the  bailiff  found  false  witnesses,  who  swore  an  oath  against 
me  ?  The  good  old  squire,  whenever  he  saw  me  afterward,  gave  me  money,  and 
on  all  holidays  sent  me  meat,  and  bread,  and  wine.  May  God  reward  him  for 
it.  It  often  cheered  me  in  my  poverty." 

Rudi  had  tears  in  his  eyes,  and  continued:  "Alas!  your  honor!  if  he  had 
only  talked  with  us,  by  ourselves,  as  you  do,  many,  very  many  things  would 
never  have  happened ;  but  the  bloodsuckers  were  always  by  his  side,  whenever 
we  saw  him,  and  that  spoiled  all." 

Squire.  "You  must  forget  this  now,  Rudi.  The  meadow  is  again  yours.  I 
have  effaced  the  bailiff's  name  from  the  deed,  and  I  wish  you  joy  of  it  with  all 
my  heart,  Rudi !  " 

Rudi  trembled,  and  stammered  out:  "I  can  not  enough  thank  your 
honor." 

The  squire  said:  "You  have  nothing  to  thank  me  for,  Rudi.  The  meadow  is 
yours  by  the  laws  of  God  and  man." 

Rudi  clasped  his  hands  together,  wept  aloud,  and  said :  "  0,  my  mother's  bless- 
ing is  upon  me !  She  died  on  Friday,  your  honor  I  and  before  she  died,  she  said 
to  me :  '  All  will  go  well  with  thee,  Rudi.  Think  of  me,  Rudi ! '  0,  sir,  I  am 
so  grieved  for  my  dear  mother !  " 

The  squire  and  the  pastor  were  much  affected,  and  the  squire  said:  "God's 
blessing  will  indeed  be  upon  you,  good  and  pious  man." 

"  0,  sir !  it  is  owing  to  my  mother's  blessing  I  The  blessing  of  the  most  relig- 
ious, patient  woman,"  said  Rudi,  weeping. 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  131 

11  How  troubled  I  am,  pastor,  that  this  man  should  have  been  so  long  kept  out 
of  his  right,"  said  the  squire. 

"  It  is  all  over  now,  sir  1 "  said  Rudi,  "  and  suffering  and  want  are  blessings 
from  God,  when  they  are  gone  through.  But  I  can  not  sufficiently  thank  you 
for  all ;  for  the  work  at  the  church,  which  cheered  and  comforted  my  mother  on 
her  death-bed ;  and  then  for  the  meadow.  I  know  not  what  I  ought  to  say  or 
do,  sir.  0 1  if  she  had  only  lived  to  see  it  I  " 

Squire.  "  You  are  an  excellent  man,  and  she  will  rejoice  in  your  welfare, 
even  in  heaven.  Your  sorrow  and  your  filial  love  have  affected  me  so  much, 
that  I  had  almost  forgotten  to  tell  you,  that  the  bailiff  is  bound  to  pay  you 
arrears,  with  costs." 

Pastor.  "  Permit  me,  sir,  here  to  speak  a  word  to  Rudi.  The  bailiff  is  in 
very  straitened  circumstances.  He  is,  indeed,  bound  to  pay  you  arrears,  with 
costs,  Rudi.  But  I  know  that  you  are  too  kind-hearted  to  push  him  to  the 
uttermost,  and  to  bring  him  to  beggary  in  his  old  age.  I  promised,  in  his  afflic- 
tion, to  do  all  I  could  to  obtain  mercy  and  compassion  for  him,  and  I  must  per- 
form my  promise  now.  Rudi,  have  pity  upon  his  distress." 

CHAPTER  xcvi. — GENEROSITY  OP  A  POOR  MAN  TOWARD  HIS  ENEMY. 

Rudi.  "  Say  not  a  word  about  the  arrears,  reverend  sir ;  they  are  out  of  the 
question :  and,  if  the  bailiff  is  so  poor — I  don't  like  to  seem  to  boast — but  I  will 
certainly  do  what  is  right  toward  him. 

"The  meadow  will  furnish  hay  for  more  than  three  cows ;  and,  if  I  keep 
two  out  of  it,  I  shall  have  enough  and  more  than  I  durst  hope  for;  and  I 
will  willingly  let  the  bailiff  have  enough  to  keep  one  cow,  as  long  as  he 
lives." 

Pastor.  "It  is  acting  generously,  and  like  a  Christian,  Rudi;  and  God  will 
grant  his  blessing  upon  the  remainder." 

Arner.  "  This  is  all  well  and  good,  my  dear  sir.  But  we  must  not  take  the 
good  fellow  at  his  word,  now.  He  is  overcome  by  his  joy.  I  admire  you  for 
your  offer,  Rudi ;  but  consider  the  thing  over  quietly  for  a  day  or  two.  It  will 
be  time  enough  to  promise,  when  you  are  sure  you  will  not  repent." 

Rudi.  "I  am  but  a  poor  man,  your  honor;  but  not  so  poor  as  to  repent 
having  promised  to  do  what  is  right." 

Pastor.  "  The  squire  is  right,  Rudi.  It  is  enough  for  the  present  that  you 
will  not  exact  the  arrears.  If  you  find  that  the  bailiff  is  in  want;  when  you 
have  well  considered  the  thing,  you  can  do  what  you  like." 

Rudi.  "  If  the  bailiff  is  in  want,  I  am  sure  I  shall  wish  to  do  as  I  have  said, 
your  reverence." 

Squire.  "  "Well,  Rudi,  I  want  this  to  be  a  happy,  cheerful  day  for  you. 
Would  you  rather  stay  and  rejoice  with  us  here,  or  go  home  to  your  children? 
I  will  take  care  that  you  have  a  good  supper  in  either  place." 

Rudi.  "  Your  honor  is  very  good  I  but  I  wish  to  go  home  to  my  children. 
There  is  nobody  to  take  care  of  them.  Alas !  my  wife  is  in  her  grave — and  my 
mother  also." 

Squire.  "  Then  go  home  to  your  children,  Rudi.  In  the  pastor's  cow-house, 
below,  you  will  find  a  cow,  which  I  give  you  to  reconcile  you  to  my  dear  grand- 
father, who  did  you  wrong;  and  that  you  may  this  day  rejoice  over  his  memory, 
with  your  children.  I  have  also  ordered  a  quantity  of  hay  to  be  carried  from 
the  bailiff's  barn,  for  it  is  yours.  You  will  find  it  at  home ;  and,  if  your  cottage 


132  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

or  your  cow-house  want  repairs,  take  what  wood  is  necessary  out  of  my 
forest." 

CHAPTER  xcvn. — HIS  GRATITUDE  TO  THE  SQUIRE. 

RUDI  knew  not  what  to  say,  he  was  so  completely  overcome ;  and  this  joyful 
confusion,  which  could  not  utter  a  word,  pleased  Arner  more  than  any  expres- 
sion of  thanks. 

At  last  Rudi  stammered  out  a  few  words,  but  Arner  interrupted  him,  and 
said,  smiling:  "I  see  that  you  are  grateful,  Rudi."  He  then  again  shook  him 
by  the  hand,  and  added:  "Go,  now,  Rudi.  Drive  home  your  cow,  and  depend 
upon  my  help ;  whenever  I  can  be  of  service  to  you  in  any  way,  it  will  always 
be  a  pleasure  to  me." 

Then  Rudi  left  Arner,  and  drove  home  the  cow. 

CHAPTER  xcvm. — A  SCENE  TO  TOUCH  THE  HEART. 

THE  pastor,  and  all  who  were  present,  had  tears  in  their  eyes,  and  remained 
silent  for  some  moments  after  the  man  left  the  room. 

At  last  Theresa  exclaimed:  "What  an  evening  this  has  been !  How  fair  is 
creation,  and  with  what  pleasure  and  joy  does  the  face  of  nature  inspire  us ;  but 
human  happiness  is  more  delightful  than  all  the  beauties  of  earth  1 " 

"Yes,  my  love,  it  surpasses  all  earthly  beauties,"  said  the  squire. 

The  pastor  added:  "I  thank  you,  from  my  heart,  sir,  for  the  touching  scenes 
you  have  brought  before  us.  Throughout  the  course  of  my  life,  I  never  met 
with  purer  and  nobler  greatness  of  soul  than  in  the  deed  of  this  man.  But  it  is 
most  certain  that  the  purest  elevation  of  the  human  heart,  is  to  be  sought  for 
amongst  the  unfortunate  and  distressed." 

The  pastor's  wife  pressed  her  children,  who  were  much  affected,  to  her  heart, 
bent  over  them,  and  wept  in  silence. 

After  a  while,  the  children  said  to  her:  "Let  us  go  and  see  his  poor  children, 
and  send  them  our  supper." 

And  the  pastor's  wife  said  to  Theresa:  "Will  you  like  to  go  with  the  chil- 
dren?" 

"Very  willingly,"  answered  Theresa.  And  the  squire  and  the  pastor  ex- 
pressed their  wish  to  accompany  them. 

Arner  had  brought  a  roasted  quarter  of  veal  in  the  carriage  with  him,  for  the 
poor  family;  and  the  pastor's  wife  had  added  to  this  some  good  nourishing  broth, 
and  given  orders  for  it  to  be  taken  to  them :  but  now  she  sent  also  her  own  and 
the  children's  supper,  and  Claus  carried  all  to  the  poor  man's  cottage. 

All  the  villagers,  young  and  old,  men,  women,  and  children,  were  collected  at 
Rudi's  door,  and  round  the  hay-cart  and  the  fine  cow. 

Claus  was  followed  almost  immediately  by  the  squire  and  his  lady,  the  pastor's 
wife,  and  all  the  children.  They  went  into  the  room  and  found  nothing  but 
sickly,  half-naked  children,  the  pictures  of  hunger  and  want.  All  were  much 
affected  by  the  distress  of  the  family;  and  Arner  said  to  his  companions:  "Yet 
this  very  man  is  now  willing  to  give  the  bailiff,  who  has  been  the  cause  of  all 
this  misery  for  so  many  years,  a  third  part  of  the  hay  from  his  meadow !  " 

"It  ought  not  to  be  allowed,"  said  Theresa,  hastity,  in  the  warmth  of  her 
compassion  for  so  much  distress.  "  This  man,  with  all  his  children,  ought  not 
to  be  allowed  to  give  a  farthing  of  what  belongs  to  him  to  that  wicked  wretch." 

"  But,  my  love,  would  you  set  bounds  to  the  course  of  that  virtue  and 


LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE.  133 

magnanimity  which  God  has  raised,  through  suffering  and  want,  to  such  a 
height? — a  height  which  has  so  deeply  affected  your  own  heart,  and  forced  tears 
from  you?" 

"No,  not  for  worlds,"  answered  Theresa.  "  Let  him  give  all  he  has,  if  he  will. 
God  will  never  forsake  such  a  man !  " 

Arner  then  said  to  Rudi:  "Give  your  children  something  to  eat." 

But  Rudeli  pulled  his  father  by  the  arm,  and  whispered  in  his  ear:  "Father, 
may  I  take  Gertrude  something  ?  " 

"Yes,"  said  Rudi;  "but  wait  a  little." 

Arner  had  heard  the  word  Gertrude,  and  asked  what  the  little  fellow  was 
saying  about  her. 

Then  Rudi  told  him  about  the  stolen  potatoes,  and  his  mother's  death-bed ; 
and  the  goodness  of  Leonard  and  Gertrude,  and  that  the  very  shoes  and  stock- 
ings he  had  on  came  from  them;  adding:  "This  is  a  blessed  day  for  me,  your 
honor!  but  I  can  not  enjoy  one  mouthful,  if  these  people  do  not  come  and  share 
it? 

How  Arner  praised  them,  and  how  they  all  admired  the  quiet  goodness  of  a 
poor  mason's  wife,  and  the  holy  death  of  Catharine ;  and  how  Rudeli  ran  with 
a  beating  heart  to  invite  Leonard  and  Gertrude ;  and  how  they  declined  till 
Arner  sent  Glaus  again  for  them  and  their  children,  and  then  came  abashed  and 
with  downcast  eyes ;  how  Charles  and  Emily  begged  their  papa  and  mamma  to 
give  them  shoes  and  stockings,  and  some  of  their  old  clothes,  for  all  the  chil- 
dren, and  helped  them  to  the  nicest  food ;  and  how  kind  the  pastor's  wife  was 
to  them ;  and  how  Rudeli  and  his  sisters  were  not  content  till  Gertrude  came, 
and  then  ran  to  her,  seized  hold  of  her  hand,  and  jumped  into  her  arms.  All 
this  I  will  not  seek  to  describe  by  many  words. 

Arner  and  Theresa  stood  for  some  time  gazing  on  the  scene,  deeply  touched 
by  the  sight  of  so  much  misery,  which  was  now  cheered  and  entirely  relieved. 
At  last,  with  tears  in  their  eyes,  they  quietly  took  leave ;  and  the  squire  said  to 
the  coachman:  "Drive  gently  for  a  mile  or  two." 

Leonard  and  Gertrude  remained  with  Rudi  till  eight  o'clock,  joyfully  sympa- 
thizing in  his  good  fortune. 

CHAPTER  xcix. — A  PLEASING  PROSPECT. 

FOR  the  last  few  weeks,  there  has  been  a  general  report  in  the  village,  that 
Gertrude  wishes  to  bring  about  a  marriage  between  Rudi  and  young  Meyer's 
sister,  who  is  her  dearest  friend. 

And  as  Rudi's  meadow  is  worth  at  least  two  thousand  florins,  and  it  is  said 
that  the  squire  has  told  her  brother  he  should  rejoice  in  the  match,  people  sup- 
pose she  will  not  refuse  him. 

The  mason  goes  on  extremely  well  with  the  building,  and  the  squire  likes 
him  better  every  day. 

CHAPTER  c. — THE  POULTERER'S  REWARD. 

THE  poulterer  came  in  for  his  share  of  good  fortune.  Theresa  saw  him,  aa 
they  were  driving  home,  and  said  to  Arner:  "He  should  not  go  unrewarded; 
for,  in  reality,  it  was  he,  and  his  night  journey,  which  brought  all  tlu's 
about." 

Then  Arner  called  out  to  the  poulterer,  and  said :  "  Christopher  I  my  wife 


134  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

insists  upon  having  you  paid  for  your  devil's  business : "  and  he  gave  him  a 
couple  of  crowns. 

The  poulterer  made  a  low  bow,  and  said :  "  Please  your  honor,  I  should  like 
to  do  such  devil's  business  every  day  of  my  life." 

"Yes,  "said  Arner;  "provided  you  could  be  sure  of  having  the  dogs  kept 
well  chained  up." 

"Very  true,  your  honor,"  said  the  poulterer;  and  the  carriage  drove  on. 


REMARKS  BY  THE  EDITOR. 


THE  foregoing  pages,  although  constituting  a  tale  complete  in  itself,  and 
the  whole  work  as  originally  published  in  1781,  are  but  about  one-fourth 
part  of  "  Leonard  and  Gertrude"  as  enlarged  in  subsequent  editions. 

As  introductory  to  the  chapters  on  the  School  in  Bonnal,  which  are 
the  only  portion  to  be  given  from  the  remainder  of  the  work,  it  will  not 
be  improper  to  give  a  brief  account  of  all  of  it. 

The  first  volume  of  the  collected  edition  of  Pestalozzi's  works  [1818 — 
26,]  contains  all  the  portion  above  printed.  The  story  proceeds  with  a 
continuation  of  Arner's  efforts  for  the  improvement  of  the  village,  with 
the  help  of  the  pastor,  of  Gluelphi,  a  retired  military  officer  who  becomes 
schoolmaster,  Meyer,  a  cotton  manufacturer,  and  Gertrude,  whose  simple 
and  effective  practical  methods  of  managing  and  instructing  her  own  and 
Rudi's  children,  furnish  indispensable  patterns  to  the  benevolent  and  well- 
educated  but  inexperienced  gentry. 

The  school,  though  a  prominent  feature  in  the  story,  is  only  one  feature. 
It  includes  a  combination  of  measures  set  on  foot  by  Arner  for  the  moral, 
social,  and  physical  improvement  of  the  people  of  the  village,  both  rich 
and  poor.  The  action  of  the  tale  consists  of  the  progress  of  these  meas- 
ures, and  of  the  opposition  to  them,  resulting  from  the  obstinate  adher- 
ence of  the  rich  to  their  long-established  habits  of  oppression  and  ex- 
tortion, and  from  the  low  vices  of  falsehood,  hypocrisy,  &c.,  which  have 
naturally  infected  the  poor. 

One  of  the  chief  measures  undertaken  by  Arner  for  ameliorating  the 
physical  condition  of  the  village,  is  the  partition  among  the  landowners 
of  a  certain  common,  into  equal  shares  for  rich  and  poor ;  a  scheme 
promising  material  advantage  to  the  latter,  and  perfectly  fair  to  the  former. 
This  is  bitterly  opposed  by  the  large  landowners,  however;  and  the 
clumsy  cunning  with  which  they  scheme  together  to  prevent  the  partition, 
and  the  energetic  movements  of  Arner  toward  the  accomplishment  of  it, 
form  a  very  curious  and  graphic  picture  of  the  social  life  of  the  villagers 
of  the  period. 

The  feudal  authority  possessed  by  Arner,  however,  is  too  great  to  admit 
of  any  other  than  underhand  and  secret  methods  of  opposition  to  his 
various  reforms ;  and  these  would  necessarily  fail  at  furthest  with  the 
disappearance  of  the  older  generation  from  the  scene,  and  with  the  gradual 
substitution  in  their  places  of  those  growing  up  under  the  influence  of 
the  reformatory  measures  and  better  education  introduced.  But  the 
progress  of  events  renders  it  proper  for  Arner  to  make  application  to  the 
government  for  purposes  connected  with  his  plans,  and  some  meddlesome 


136  LEONARD  AND  GERTRUDE. 

relatives  of  his  take  the  opportunity  to  make  unfavorable  representations 
to  a  conservative  minister,  with  the  design  of  breaking  off  his  enterprise. 
This  the  minister  endeavors  to  do,  from  apprehensions  of  some  revolu- 
tionary contagion  which  is  to  be  spread  among  Arner's  peasantry,  thence 
into  the  vicinity,  and  thence  onward.  But  no  serious  injuries  ensued ; 
and  the  whole  result  of  Arner's  undertaking  was,  as  might  be  expected, 
the  beginning  of  a  reform  among  the  younger  portion  of  the  community, 
and  an  increased  degree  of  outward  propriety  among  the  elder. 

The  career  of  Hummel,  the  bailiff,  is  somewhat  elaborately  illustrated 
by  an  episodical  history  of  his  previous  life.  Two  sermons  by  the  pastor, 
though  also  digressions  from  the  thread  of  the  story,  are  not  without  in- 
terest, as  giving  Pestalozzi's  views  of  what  the  spirit  and  methods  of 
popular  education  should  be.  Hummel  himself,  after  undergoing  public 
punishment,  is  exhibited  at  the  close  of  the  work,  with  more  truthfulness 
than  is  usual  in  a  story,  as  relapsing,  so  far  as  his  failing  health  and 
diminished  riches  and  influence  permit,  into  his  old  habits  of  vile  language, 
swindling,  and  bullying. 

But  the  story  comes  to  no  regular  conclusion  at  the  end  of  the  fourth 
volume ; — it  drops  all  the  threads  of  the  village  life,  suddenly  and  without 
any  gathering  together ;  although  the  first  volume,  which  was  written  a 
year  or  two  before  the  others,  they  being  added  to  it  by  after-thought,  is 
reasonably  complete  as  a  work  of  art. 

The  following  chapters  upon  the  School  in  Bonnal,  are  from  various 
parts  of  the  three  last  volumes ;  and  are  selected  as  furnishing,  in  their 
connected  succession,  a  good  specimen  of  the  style  of  the  remainder  of 
the  work,  and  as  presenting  an  exemplification  of  Pestalozzi's  favorite 
doctrine  of  the  intimate  relation  between  domestic  and  school  instruction. 


Yin.   PESTALOZZI.-THE  SCHOOL  IN  BONNAL.* 


1.    A  GOOD  SCHOOL  is  FOUNDED. 

SINCE  the  squire  had  returned  from  Cotton  Meyer's,  he  had  spent  every  mo- 
ment he  could  spare  with  the  lieutenant,  in  consultation  with  him  on  the  organ- 
ization of  the  new  school.  They  both  came  to  the  conclusion  that  a  child  is 
always  well-educated,  when  he  has  learned  to  practice  skillfully,  orderly,  and  to 
the  benefit  of  him  and  his,  what  is  to  be  his  future  occupation. 

This  principal  object  of  all  education  seemed  to  them  at  once  the  first  requi- 
site of  a  reasonable  school  for  human  beings.  And  they  perceived  that  the 
lieutenant,  and  any  person  proposing  to  establish  a  good  school  for  farmers'  and 
factory  children,  must  either  himself  know  and  understand  what  such  children 
need  to  know  and  do,  in  order  to  become  capable  farmers  and  factory  workers ; 
or,  if  he  does  not  himself  understand  it,  that  he  must  inquire  and  learn  about  it, 
and  have  those  at  hand  who  do  know  and  can  show  him. 

They  naturally  thought  first  of  Cotton  Meyer  himself,  and  immediately  after 
this  conversation,  and  their  meal,  they  went  to  him. 

"  This  is  the  man  of  whom  I  have  said  so  much  to  you,"  said  the  squire  to  the 
lieutenant,  and  then,  to  Meyer,  "  And  this  is  a  gentleman  who,  I  hope,  will  en- 
courage you  about  your  school." 

Meyer  did  not  understand ;  but  the  squire  explained  to  him,  saying  that  this 
was  to  be  the  schoolmaster  of  the  village. 

Meyer  could  not  sufficiently  wonder  at  this,  and  after  a  time  he  said,  "  If  the 
gentleman  is  willing  to  take  so  much  pains,  we  can  not  thank  him  enough ;  but 
it  will  require  time  to  become  well  acquainted  with  our  condition  and  ways,  in 
the  village." 

Lieutenant.  "I  presume  so;  but  one  must  begin  some  time  or  other;  and  I 
shall  not  regret  any  pains  I  take  to  examine  as  thoroughly  as  possible  what  is 
needed,  and  what  your  children  can  properly  learn,  in  order  to  be  well-fitted  for 
their  farming  and  manufacturing." 

Meyer.     "That  will  be  an  excellent  beginning." 

Lieut.  "I  do  not  know  how  else  I  ought  to  begin;  and  I  shall  take  every 
opportunity  of  becoming  acquainted  with  all  manner  of  house  and  field  labor, 
so  as  to  learn  correctly  what  training  and  what  example  your  children  need,  in 
order  to  the  right  education  for  their  vocation  and  circumstances." 

Meyer's  Mareieli  was  quite  at  home  with  the  lieutenant.  She  showed  him 
all  about  the  house,  and  in  the  stables,  what  the  children  must  do,  to  learn  to  do 
in  good  order  whatever  was  necessary  for  themselves  and  their  parents ;  made 
them  dig  in  the  garden  and  throw  earth  hither  and  thither,  to  even  the  ground 
and  improve  its  appearance,  and  adjust  the  edges ;  and  to  scatter  fodder  coT- 
rectly.  The  more  he  saw,  the  more  questions  he  asked ;  inquired  how  they 

*  From  Part  III.  of  "  Lienhard  and  Gertrud,"  as  extracted  in  Christoffd's  "  Pestalozzi's 
Life  and  Views,"  Zurich,  1847. 


138  THE  SCHOOL  IN  BONNAL. 

measured  hay,  reckoned  tithes,  and  kept  account  of  the  cotton  manufacture ; 
what  was  the  difference  of  wages  in  different  kinds  of  cotton,  and  a  hundred 
other  things.  These  they  explained  to  him  as  far  as  they  could.  Then  he  pro- 
posed to  teach  the  children  how  to  spin.  But  Mareieli  said,  "  We  take  in  some 
hundred  zentners*  of  yarn  in  a  year,  and  I  have  never  yet  brought  them  to  spin 
right  well.  And  I  can  not  complain  about  it,  either ;  for  they  have  to  do  a  good 
deal  in  the  fields  and  about  the  cattle.  But  if  you  desire  to  see  a  good  arrange- 
ment for  the  matter  of  spinning,  you  must  go  to  see  the  mason's  wife.  With 
her,  there  is  something  to  be  seen  on  that  point;  but  not  with  us." 

Lieut.     "  Is  not  the  mason's  wife,  of  whom  you  speak,  named  Gertrude  ?  " 

Mareieli.     "  It  seems  that  you  know  her  already  ?  " 

Lieut.     "No;  but  the  squire  had  proposed  to  go  directly  from  you  to  her." 

Mar.     "  Well ;  then  you  will  see  that  I  told  you  correctly." 

2.    A  GOOD  SCHOOL  is  THE  FOUNDATION  OP  ALL  GOOD  FORTUNE. 

Gertrude's  room  was  so  full,  when  they  entered,  that  they  could  scarcely  pass 
between  the  wheels.  Gertrude,  who  had  not  expected  to  see  any  strangers,  told 
the  children,  as  the  door  opened,  to  get  up  and  make  room.  But  the  squire 
would  not  let  one  of  them  move,  but  gave  his  hand  first  to  the  pastor  and  then 
to  the  lieutenant,  to  lead  them  behind  the  children,  next  the  wall,  to  Gertrude's 
table. 

You  could  not  believe  how  much  the  scene  delighted  these  gentlemen.  What 
they  had  seen  with  Cotton  Meyer  seemed  as  nothing,  in  comparison. 

And  very  naturally.  Order  and  comfort,  about  a  rich  man,  do  not  surprise. 
We  think,  hundreds  of  others  do  not  do  so  well,  because  they  have  not  money. 
But  happiness  and  comfort  in  a  poor  hut,  showing  so  unanswerably  that  every 
body  in  the  world  could  be  comfortable,  if  they  could  maintain  good  order  and 
were  well  brought  up — this  astonishes  a  well-disposed  mind,  almost  beyond 
power  of  expression. 

But  the  gentlemen  had  a  whole  room  full  of  such  poor  children,  in  the  full 
enjoyment  of  such  blessings,  before  their  eyes.  The  squire  seemed  for  a  time  to 
be  seeing  the  piqture  of  the  first-born  of  his  future  better-taught  people,  as  if  in 
a  dream ;  and  the  falcon  eyes  of  the  lieutenant  glanced  hither  and  thither  like 
lightning,  from  child  to  child,  from  hand  to  hand,  from  work  to  work,  from  eye 
to  eye.  The  more  he  saw,  the  fuller  did  his  heart  grow  with  the  thought:  She 
has  done,  and  completely,  what  we  seek ;  the  school  which  we  look  for  is  in 
her  room. 

The  room  was  for  a  time  as  still  as  death.  The  gentlemen  could  do  nothing 
but  gaze  and  gaze,  and  be  silent.  But  Gertrude's  heart  beat  at  the  stillness  and 
at  the  marks  ot  respect  which  the  lieutenant  showed  to  her  during  it,  and  which 
bordered  on  reverence.  The  children  however  spun  away  briskly,  and  laughed 
out  of  their  eyes  to  each  other ;  for  they  perceived  that  the  gentlemen  were  there 
on  their  account,  and  to  see  their  work. 

The  lieutenant's  first  words  to  Gertrude  were,  "  Do  these  children  all  belong 
to  you,  mistress  ?  " 

"No,"  said  Gertrude,  "they  are  not  all  mine;"  and  she  then  pointed  out,  one 
after  another,  which  were  hers,  and  which  were  Rudi's. 

"  Think  of  it,  lieutenant,"  said  the  pastor,  "  these  children,  who  belong  to  Rudi, 
could  not  spin  one  thread,  four  weeks  ago." 

*  Hundred  weight. 


THE  SCHOOL  IN  BONNAL.  jgg 

The  lieutenant  looked  at  the  pastor,  and  at  Gertrude,  and  answered,  "  Is  it 
possible  I " 

Gertrude.  "  That  is  not  remarkable.  A  child  will  learn  to  spin  right  well  in 
a  couple  of  weeks.  I  have  known  children  to  learn  it  in  two  days." 

Squire.  "  It  is  not  that  which  I  am  wondering  at  in  this  room,  but  quite 
another  thing.  These  children  of  other  people,  since  the  three  or  four  weeks 
ago  when  Gertrude  received  them,  have  come  to  look  so  differently,  that  in 
truth  I  scarcely  knew  one  of  them.  Living  death,  and  the  extremest  mis- 
ery, spoke  from  their  faces ;  and  these  are  so  gone  that  no  trace  of  them  is 
left." 

The  lieutenant  replied,  in  French,  "  But  what  does  she  do  to  the  children, 
then?" 

Squire.     "God  knows!" 

Pastor.  "  If  you  stay  here  all  day,  you  hear  no  tone,  nor  see  any  shadow  of 
any  thing  particular.  It  seems  always,  and  in  every  thing  she  does,  as  if  any 
other  woman  could  do  it ;  and  certainly,  the  commonest  wife  would  never  im- 
agine that  Gertrude  was  doing,  or  could  do,  any  thing  which  she  herself  could 
not." 

Lieut.  "  You  could  not  say  more  to  raise  her  in  my  estimation.  That  is  the 
culmination  of  art,  where  men  think  there  is  none  at  all.  The  loftiest  is  so  sun- 
pie  that  children  and  boys  think  they  could  do  much  more  than  that." 

As  the  gentlemen  conversed  in  French,  the  children  began  to  look  at  each 
other  and  laugh.  Heireli  and  the  child  who  sat  opposite  to  her  made  mouths 
to  each  other,  as  if  to  say,  "Parlen,  parlen,  parlen." 

Gertrude  only  nodded,  and  all  was  still  in  a  moment.  And  then  the  lieuten- 
ant, seeing  a  book  lying  on  every  wheel,  asked  Gertrude  what  they  were  doing 
with  them." 

Ger.     "  Oh,  they  learn  out  of  them." 

Lieut.     "  But,  not  while  they  are  spinning  ?  " 

Ger.     "  Certainly." 

Lieut.     "  I  want  to  see  that." 

Squire.     "  Yes ;  you  must  show  us  that,  Gertrude." 

Ger.     "  Children,  take  up  your  books  and  learn." 

Children.     "  Loud,  as  we  did  before  ?  " 

Ger.     "  Yes,  loud,  as  you  did  before ;  but  right." 

Then  the  children  opened  their  books,  and  each  laid  the  appointed  page  before 
him,  and  studied  the  lesson  which  had  been  set.  But  the  wheels  turned  as  be- 
fore, although  the  children  kept  their  eyes  wholly  on  the  books. 

The  lieutenant  could  not  be  satisfied  with  seeing,  and  desired  her  to  show 
him  every  thing  relating  to  her  management  of  the  children,  and  what  she  taught 
them. 

She  would  have  excused  herself,  and  said  it  was  nothing  at  all  but  what  the 
gentlemen  knew,  and  a  thousand  times  better  than  she. 

But  the  squire  intimated  to  her  to  proceed.  Then  she  told  the  children 
to  close  their  books,  and  she  taught  them,  by  rote,  a  stanza  from  the  song, 

"  How  beautiful  the  sunbeams'  play, 
And  how  their  soft  and  brilliant  ray 
Delights  and  quickens  all  mankind— 
The  eye,  the  brain,  and  all  the  mind  !  " 


140  THE  SCHOOL  IN  BONNAL. 

The  third  stanza,  which  they  were  then  learning,  reads  thus : — 

"  The  sun  is  set.    And  thus  goes  down, 
Before  the  Lord  of  Heaven's  frown, 
The  loftiness  and  pride  of  men, 
And  all  is  dusk  and  night  again." 

She  repeated  one  line  at  a  time,  distinctly  and  slowly,  and  the  children  said 
it  after  her,  just  as  slowly,  and  very  distinctly,  and  did  so  over  and  over,  until 
one  said,  "  I  know  it  now."  Then  she  let  that  one  repeat  the  stanza  alone,  and 
when  he  knew  every  syllable,  she  permitted  him  to  repeat  it  to  the  others,  and 
them  to  repeat  after  him,  until  they  knew  it.  Then  she  began  with  them  all 
three  of  the  stanzas,  of  which  they  had  already  learned  the  first  two.  And 
then  she  showed  the  gentlemen  how  she  taught  them  arithmetic ;  and  her  mode 
was  the  simplest  and  most  practical  that  can  be  imagined. 

But  of  that  I  shall  speak  again  in  another  place. 

3.    RECRUITING  OFFICER'S  DOINGS. 

The  lieutenant  was  every  moment  more  convinced  that  this  was  the  right 
instruction  for  his  school ;  but  he  was  also  convinced  that  he  needed  a  woman 
like  this,  if  the  giving  it  was  to  be  not  merely  possible,  but  actual. 

A  Prussian  recruiting  officer  does  not  contrive  so  many  means  of  getting  into 
the  service  a  fellow  who  comes  up  to  the  standard,  as  the  lieutenant  contrived 
to  decoy  into  his  trap  this  woman,  who  came  up  to  his  standard  in  school 
teaching. 

"But,  mistress,"  he  began,  "could  not  the  arrangements  in  your  room  here  be 
introduced  into  a  school  ?  " 

She  thought  a  moment,  and  replied,  "  I  don't  know.  But  it  seems  as  if  what 
is  possible  with  ten  children  is  possible  with  forty.  But  it  would  require  much ; 
and  I  do  not  believe  that  it  would  be  easy  to  find  a  schoolmaster  who  would 
permit  such  an  arrangement  in  his  school." 

Lieut  "  But  if  you  knew  of  one  who  desired  to  introduce  it,  would  you  help 
him?" 

Ger.     (Laughing)    "  Yes,  indeed ;  as  much  as  I  could." 

Lieut.     "And  if  I  am  he?" 

Ger.     "  Are  what  ?  " 

Lieut.  "  The  schoolmaster,  who  would  be  glad  to  organize  such  a  school  as 
you  have  in  your  room." 

Ger.     "  You  are  no  schoolmaster.' 

Lieut.     "  Yes  I  am.     Ask  the  gentlemen." 

Ger.  "  Yes,  perhaps,  in  a  city,  and  in  something  of  which  we  know  neither 
gigs  nor  gags." 

Lieut.     "  No ;  but,  honestly,  in  a  village." 

Ger.     (Pointing  to  the  wheels.}     "  Of  such  children  ? " 

Lieut.     "  Yes,  of  such  children." 

Ger.  "  It  is  a  long  way  from  me  to  the  place  where  schoolmasters  for  such 
children  look  like  you." 

Lieut.     "Not  so  far." 

Ger.     "I  think  it  is." 

Lieut.  "  But  you  will  help  me,  if  I  undertake  to  organize  my  school  in  that 
way  ?  " 

Ger.     "  If  it  is  far  away,  I  will  not  go  with  you." 


THE  SCHOOL  IN  BONNAL.  141 

Lieut.     "  I  shall  remain  here." 

Ger.     ' '  And  keep  school  ?  " 

Lieut.     "  Yes." 

Ger.     "  Here  in  the  room  ?  " 

Lieut.     "No;  in  the  school-room." 

Ger.     "  You  would  be  sorry,  if  you  should  be  taken  at  your  word." 

Lieut.     "  But  you  still  more,  if  you  should  have  to  help  me." 

Ger.     "No;  it  would  please  me." 

Lieut.     "  You  have  said  twice  that  you  would  help  me." 

Ger.     "I  have — and  I  say  so  three  times,  if  you  are  our  schoolmaster." 

Here  he  and  the  other  gentlemen  began  to  laugh;  and  the  squire  said  "Yes, 
Gertrude ;  he  is  certainly  your  schoolmaster." 

This  perplexed  her.    She  blushed,  and  did  not  know  what  to  say. 

Lieut.     "  What  makes  you  so  silent  ?  " 

Ger.  "  I  think  it  would  have  been  well  if  I  had  been  as  silent  for  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  back." 

Lieut.     "Why?" 

Ger.     " How  can  I  help  you,  if  you  are  a  schoolmaster?  " 

Lieut.     "You  are  looking  for  excuses ;  but  I  shall  not  let  you  go." 

Ger.     "  I  will  beg  you." 

Lieut.  "It  will  be  of  no  use;  if  you  had  promised  to  marry  me,  you  must 
abide  by  the  promise." 

Ger.     "No,  indeed  1" 

Lieut.     "  Yes,  indeed !  " 

Ger.     "  It  is  out  of  the  question." 

Squire.  "  If  there  is  any  thing  which  you  know,  Gertrude,  do  it  as  well  as  you 
can ;  he  will  not  ask  any  thing  more ;  but,  whatever  you  do  to  help  him,  you 
will  do  to  help  me." 

Ger.  "  I  will,  very  willingly ;  but  you  see  my  room  full  of  children,  and  how 
I  am  tied  down.  But,  with  regard  to  advice  and  help  in  matters  relating  to 
work,  which  a  gentleman  naturally  can  not  understand,  I  know  a  woman  who 
understands  them  much  better  than  I ;  and  she  can  do  whatever  I  can  not." 

Squire.     "Arrange  it  as  you  can;  but  give  him  your  hand  on  the  bargain." 

4.    A  PROUD  SCHOOLMASTER. 

The  new  condition  of  affairs  raised  the  courage  of  the  pastor,  who  had  been 
almost  in  the  state  of  a  slave  under  the  old  squire ;  and  his  acquaintance  with 
the  son  contributed  much  toward  accomplishing  his  ancient  plans.  On  the 
next  Sunday  he  explained  to  the  people  some  chapters  of  the  Bible ;  and,  at  the 
end  of  the  service,  called  for  whatever  else  was  to  be  done.  Then  the  squire 
took  the  lieutenant  by  the  hand,  and  told  him  to  say  himself  to  the  congrega- 
tion what  he  desired  to  do  for  their  children. 

The  lieutenant  arose,  bowed  to  the  squire,  the  pastor,  and  the  congregation, 
took  off  his  hat,  leaned  on  his  stick,  and  said : — "  I  have  been  brought  up 
with  a  nobleman,  and  am  myself  a  nobleman ;  but  I  am  not  for  that  reason 
ashamed  to  serve  God  and  my  follow-men  in  the  situation  which  Providence 
calls  me ;  and  I  thank  my  dear  parents,  now  under  the  ground,  for  the  good  ed- 
ucation they  gave  me,  and  which  enables  me  now  to  put  your  school  on  such  a 
footing  that,  if  God  will,  your  children  shall  all  their  lives  be  respected  for  hav- 
ing attended  it.  But  it  is  not  my  business  to  make  long  speeches  and  sermons ; 


142  THE  SCHOOL  IN  BONNAL. 

but,  if  it  please  God,  I  will  begin  my  school  instruction  to-morrow,  and  then 
every  thing  will  be  made  plain.  Only  I  will  say  that  each  child  should  bring  his 
work,  whether  sewing,  or  spinning  cotton,  or  whatever  it  be,  and  the  instruments 
for  the  same,  until  the  squire  shall  purchase  such  for  the  school." 

"And  what  will  he  do  with  spinning-wheels  in  the  school? "  said  men  and 
women  to  each  other  in  all  their  seats,  and  one,  behind  him,  so  loud  that  he 
heard  it. 

The  lieutenant  turned  round,  and  said  aloud,  "  Nothing,  except  to  make  the 
children  learn  to  read  and  cipher,  of  each  other." 

This  the  farmers  could  not  get  into  their  heads  how  the  scholars  could  learn 
to  read  and  cipher  of  each  other ;  and  many  of  them  said,  at  the  church- door, 
"  It  will  be  with  him  as  it  was  with  the  madder-plants,  and  the  beautiful  sheep 
that  the  old  squire  had  brought  from  two  hundred  leagues  away,  and  then  let 
them  die  miserably  at  their  fodder."  But  some  older  and  experienced  men  said, 
"  He  does  not  look  at  all  like  the  madder-plants ;  and  has  not  the  appearance 
of  a  man  who  talks  carelessly." 

That  evening  the  lieutenant  went  into  the  school-room,  and  nailed  up,  imme- 
diately opposite  to  where  he  was  going  to  sit,  a  beautiful  engraving.  This  rep- 
resented an  old  man,  with  a  long  white  beard,  who,  with  wrinkled  brow,  and 
eyes  wide  open,  lifted  up  his  finger. 

The  squire  and  the  pastor  said,  "What  is  that  for ?  " 

Lieut.  "  He  is  to  say  to  me, '  Gluelphi,  swear  not,  while  you  sit  there  before 
mel'" 

They  replied,  "  Then  we  will  not  pull  him  down,  he  fills  too  important  a 
place." 

Lieut.     "I  have  been  considering  about  it." 

5.    SCHOOL  ORGANIZATION. 

Next  morning,  the  lieutenant  began  with  his  school.  But  I  should  not  read- 
ily recommend  any  other  schoolmaster  to  do  what  he  did,  and  after  such  a  Sun- 
day's proclamation,  which  was  considered  proud  by  every  body,  then  cause  his 
school  to  be  put  in  order  by  a  farmer's  wife.  Still,  if  he  be  a  Gluelphi,  he  may 
do  it,  and  it  will  not  injure  him ;  but  I  mean  a  real  Gluelphi,  not  a  pretended 
one. 

He  let  Gertrude  put  the  children  in  order,  just  as  if  she  had  them  at  home. 

She  divided  them  according  to  age,  and  the  work  they  had,  as  they  could  best 
be  put  together ;  and  placed  her  own  and  Rudi's  children,  who  were  already 
accustomed  to  her  management,  between  others.  In  front,  next  the  table,  she 
put  those  who  did  not  know  their  A,  B,  C ;  next  behind  them,  those  who  were 
to  spell ;  then  those  who  could  read  a  little,  and  last  those  who  could  read  fluently. 
Then,  for  the  first  row,  she  put  only  three  letters  on  the  blackboard,  and  taught 
them  to  them.  "Whichever  knew  them  best  then  was  to  name  them  aloud,  and 
the  others  were  to  repeat  them  after  him.  Then  she  changed  the  order  of  the 
letters,  wrote  them  larger  and  smaller,  and  so  left  them  before  their  eyes,  all  the 
morning.  In  like  manner  she  wrote  up  several  letters,  for  the  scholars  who 
were  learning  to  spell,  and  those  who  could  read  a  little  had  to  spell  with  these 
letters.  But  these,  as  well  as  those  who  could  read  fluently,  were  to  have  their 
books  always  open  by  their  spinning-wheels,  and  to  repeat  in  a  low  tone  of  voice 
after  one  who  read  aloud.  And  every  moment  they  were  saying  to  that  one 
"  Go  on." 


THE  SCHOOL  IN  BONNAL.  143 

For  the  work,  Gertrude  had  brought  a  woman  with  her,  named  Margaret, 
who  was  to  come  to  the  school  every  day ;  as  Gertrude  had  no  tune  for  that 
purpose. 

This  Margaret  understood  her  business  so  well  that  it  would  not  be  easy  to 
find  another  like  her.  As  soon  as  any  child's  hand,  or  wheel,  was  still,  she 
stepped  up  to  him,  and  did  not  leave  him  until  all  was  going  on  in  good  order 
again. 

Most  of  the  children  carried  home  that  evening  so  much  work,  that  their 
mothers  did  not  believe  they  had  done  it  alone.  But  many  of  the  children  an- 
swered, "  Yes ;  it  makes  a  difference  whether  Margaret  shows  us,  or  you."  And 
in  like  manner  they  praised  the  lieutenant,  their  schoolmaster. 

In  the  afternoon  he  conducted  the  school,  and  Gertrude  watched  him,  as  he 
had  her  in  the  morning ;  and  things  went  so  well  that  she  said  to  him,  "  If  I 
had  known  that  I  could  finish  all  my  work  in  helping  you  organize  the  school 
in  a  couple  of  hours,  I  should  not  have  been  so  troubled  on  Thursday." 

And  he  was  himself  pleased  that  things  went  so  well. 

That  evening  he  gave  to  each  of  the  children  over  seven  years  old,  a  couple 
of  sheets  of  paper,  stitched  together,  and  a  couple  of  pens ;  and  each  child  found 
his  name  written  thereon  as  beautifully  as  print.  They  could  not  look  at  them 
enough ;  and  one  after  another  asked  him  how  they  were  to  be  used.  He 
showed  them ;  and  wrote  for  them,  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  such  great  letters 
that  they  looked  as  if  they  were  printed.  They  would  have  watched  him  until 
morning,  it  seemed  so  beautiful  to  them,  and  they  kept  asking  him  if  they  were 
to  learn  to  do  the  same. 

He  answered,  "  The  better  you  learn  to  write,  the  better  I  shall  be  pleased." 
At  dismissal,  he  told  them  to  take  care  of  their  paper,  and  to  stick  the  points  of 
their  pens  into  rotten  apples ;  for  that  was  the  very  best  way  to  keep  them. 

"  To  this,  many  of  the  children  answered,  "  Yes,  that  would  be  nice,  if  we 
had  any  rotten  apples ;  but  it  is  not  winter  now." 

At  this  he  laughed,  and  said,  "  If  you  have  none,  perhaps  I  can  get  them  for 
you.  The  pastor's  wife  has  certainly  more  than  she  wants." 

But  other  children  said,  " No,  no;  we  will  get  some,  we  have  some  yet." 

6.    SCHOOL  ORGANIZATION — CONTINUED. 

The  children  all  ran  home,  in  order  quickly  to  show  their  beautiful  writing  to 
their  parents  ;  and  they  praised  the  schoolmaster  and  Margaret,  as  much  as  they 
could.  But  many  answered,  "Yes,  yes;  new  brooms  sweep  clean;"  or  some 
such  singular  expression,  so  that  the  children  did  not  understand  what  they 
meant.  This  troubled  the  good  children,  but  still  they  did  not  cease  to  be 
pleased ;  and  if  their  parents  took  no  pleasure  in  their  beautiful  writing,  they 
showed  it  to  whomever  they  could,  to  their  little  brothers  in  the  cradle,  and  to 
the  cat  on  the  table ;  and  took  such  care  of  them  as  they  had  never  in  their 
lives  taken  of  any  thing  before.  And  if  the  little  brother  reached  out  his  hand, 
or  the  cat  its  paw,  after  them,  they  quickly  drew  them  back,  and  said,  "  You 
must  only  look  at  it  with  your  eyes ;  not  touch  it."  Some  of  them  put  theirs 
away  in  the  Bible.  Others  said  they  could  not  open  such  a  great  book,  and  put 
them  in  a  chest,  among  the  most  precious  things  they  had.  Their  joy  at  going 
to  school  again  was  so  great  that  the  next  morning  many  of  them  got  up  almost 
before  day,  and  called  their  mothers  to  get  them  quickly  something  to  eat,  so 
that  they  might  get  to  school  in  good  season.  On  Friday,  when  the  new  writ- 


144  THE  SCHOOL  IN  BONNAL. 

ing-benches,  which  the  squire  had  had  made,  were  ready,  their  pleasure  was  very 
great.  During  the  first  lesson,  they  would  all  sit  together;  but  the  lieutenant 
divided  them  into  four  classes,  in  order  that  there  should  not  be  too  many  of 
them,  and  that  none  should  escape  him,  and  none  could  make  a  single  mark  that 
he  did  not  see. 

In  this  study  also,  most  of  the  children  did  very  well.  Some  learned  so  easi- 
ly, that  it  seemed  to  come  to  them  of  itself;  and  others,  again,  did  well,  because 
they  had  been  more  in  the  habit  of  doing  things  that  required  attention.  Some, 
however,  who  had  never  had  very  much  in  their  hands  except  the  spoon  with 
which  they  ate,  found  great  difficulties.  Some  learned  arithmetic  very  easily, 
who  found  writing  very  hard,  and  who  held  the  pen  as  if  their  hands  had  been 
crippled.  And  there  were  some  young  loafers  among  them,  who  had  all  their 
lives  scarcely  done  any  thing  except  run  about  the  streets  and  fields,  and  who, 
nevertheless,  learned  almost  every  thing  far  quicker  than  the  rest. 

So  it  is  in  the  world.  The  most  worthless  fellows  have  the  best  natural  en- 
dowments, and  usually  exceed,  in  intelligence  and  capacity,  those  who  do  not 
wander  about  so  much,  but  sit  at  home  at  their  work.  And  the  arithmeticians 
among  the  farmers  are  usually  to  be  found  at  the  tavern. 

The  schoolmaster  found  these  poor  children  generally  much  more  capable, 
both  in  body  and  in  mind,  than  he  had  expected. 

For  this  there  is  also  a  good  reason.  Need  and  poverty  make  men  more  re- 
flective and  shrewd  than  riches  and  superfluity,  and  teach  him  to  make  the 
best  use  of  every  thing  that  will  bring  him  bread. 

Gluelphi  made  so  much  use  of  this  fact,  that,  in  every  thing  he  did,  and  in  al- 
most every  word  he  used,  in  the  school,  he  had  the  distinct  purpose  of  making 
use  of  this  basis  laid  down  by  nature  herself,  for  the  education  of  the  poor  and 
of  countrymen.  He  was  so  strenuous,  even,  about  the  sweat  of  daily  labor, 
that  he  claimed  that  whatever  can  be  done  for  a  man,  makes  him  useful,  or  reli- 
able for  skill,  only  so  far  as  he  has  acquired  his  knowledge  and  skill  in  the  sweat 
of  his  years  of  study ;  and  that,  where  this  is  wanting,  the  art  and  knowledge 
of  men  is  like  a  mass  of  foam  in  the  sea,  which  often  looks,  at  a  distance,  like  a 
rock  rising  out  of  the  abyss,  but  which  falls  as  soon  as  wind  and  wave  attack  it. 
Therefore,  he  said,  in  education,  thorough  and  strict  training  to  the  vocation 
must  necessarily  precede  all  instruction  by  words. 

He  also  maintained  a  close  connection  between  this  training  to  a  vocation 
and  training  in  manners,  and  asserted  that  the  manners  of  every  condition 
and  trade,  and  even  of  the  place  or  country  of  a  man's  abode,  are  so  important 
to  him,  that  the  happiness  and  peace  of  all  his  h'fe  depends  on  them.  Training 
to  good  manners  was  thus  also  a  chief  object  of  his  school  organization.  He 
would  have  his  school-room  as  clean  as  a  church.  He  would  not  even  let  a  pane 
be  out  of  the  windows,  or  a  nail  be  wrongly  driven  in  the  floor;  and  still  less 
would  he  permit  the  children  to  throw  any  thing  on  the  floor,  eat  during  study, 
or  any  thing  else  of  the  kind.  He  preserved  strict  order,  even  in  the  least 
thing ;  and  arranged  so  that,  even  in  sitting  down  and  rising  up,  the  children 
would  not  hit  against  each  other. 

In  muddy  weather  they  were  made  to  leave  their  shoes  at  the  door,  and  sit  in 
their  stockings.  And  if  their  coats  were  muddy,  they  had  to  dry  them  in  the 
sun,  or  at  the  stove,  as  the  case  might  be,  and  clean  them.  He  himself  cut  their 
nails  for  many  of  them,  and  put  the  hair  of  almost  all  the  boys  in  good  order ; 


THE  SCHOOL  IN  BONNAL.  145 

and  whenever  any  one  went  from  writing  to  working,  he  was  obliged  to  wash 
his  hands.  They  had,  likewise,  to  rinse  out  their  mouths  at  proper  tunes,  and 
take  care  of  their  teeth,  and  see  that  their  breath  was  not  foul.  All  these  were 
things  they  knew  nothing  about. 

When  they  came  into  the  school  and  went  out,  they  stepped  up  to  him,  one 
after  the  other,  and  said  to  him,  "  God  be  with  you."  Then  he  looked  at  them 
from  head  to  foot,  and  looked  at  them  so  that  they  knew  by  his  eye,  without  his 
saying  a  word,  if  there  was  any  thing  wrong  about  them.  But  if  this  look  did 
not  serve  to  set  things  right,  he  spoke  to  them.  When  he  saw  that  the  parents 
were  to  blame  for  any  thing,  he  sent  a  message  to  them ;  and,  not  uncommonly, 
a  child  came  home  to  its  mother  with  the  message,  "  You,  the  schoolmaster 
sends  his  respects,  and  asks  whether  you  have  no  needles,  or  no  thread ;  or  if 
water  is  expensive  with  you,"  and  the  like. 

Margaret  was  as  if  she  had  been  made  on  purpose  to  help  him  about  these 
things.  If  a  child's  hair  was  not  in  good  order,  she  placed  it  with  its  spinning- 
wheel  before  her,  and  braided  it  up  while  the  child  studied  and  worked.  Most 
of  them  did  not  know  how  to  fasten  their  shoes  or  their  stockings.  All  these 
things  she  showed  them ;  adjusted  their  neckcloths  and  aprons,  if  they  were 
wrong,  and,  if  she  saw  a  hole  in  their  clothes,  took  a  needle  and  thread  and 
mended  it.  At  about  the  close  of  the  school,  she  went  through  the  room,  prais- 
ing or  blaming  the  children,  as  they  had  worked  well,  half- well,  or  ill.  Those 
who  had  done  well,  then  went  first  up  to  the  schoolmaster,  and  said  to  him, 
"  God  be  with  you,"  and  he  then  held  out  his  hand  to  them  and  replied,  "  God 
be  with  you,  you  dear  child ! "  Those  who  had  done  only  half- well,  came 
then  to  him;  and  to  them  he  only  said,  "God  be  with  you,"  without  holding 
out  his  hand  to  them.  Lastly,  those  who  had  not  done  well  at  all  had  to  leave 
the  room  before  the  others,  without  daring  to  go  to  him  at  all. 

If  one  of  them  came  too  late,  he  found  the  door  shut,  like  the  gate  of  a  for- 
tress that  is  closed.  Whether  then  he  cried  or  not,  made  no  difference ;  the 
master  said  to  him,  briefly,  "  Go  home  again,  now ;  it  will  do  yon  good  to  think 
a  long  time  about  it.  Every  thing  that  is  done  must  be  done  at  the  right  tune, 
or  else  it  is  as  if  it  is  not  done  at  all." 

7.    GOD'S  WORD  is  THE  TRUTH. 

Thus,  every  word  he  said,  was  intended,  by  constantly  accustoming  the  chil- 
dren to  what  they  would  in  future  have  to  say  and  do,  to  lead  them  into  true 
wisdom  in  life ;  for  he  endeavored,  with  every  word,  to  plant  deep  in  their 
minds  such  a  foundation  of  equanimity  and  peace,  as  every  man  can  possess  in 
all  circumstances,  if  the  difficulties  of  his  lot  are  early  made  to  be  another  na- 
ture to  him.  And  this  is  the  central  point  of  the  difference  between  his  mode 
of  instructing  the  children,  and  that  of  other  schoolmasters. 

The  efficiency  of  his  labors  soon  convinced  the  pastor  of  Bonnal  of  the  im- 
portance of  that  distinction ;  and  caused  him  to  see  that  all  verbal  instruction, 
so  far  as  it  aims  at  •  true  human  wisdom,  and  that  highest  end  of  this  wisdom, 
true  religion,  must  undoubtedly  be  subordinated  to  constant  exercises  in  useful 
domestic  labor ;  and  that  that  mouth-religion  which  consists  in  memory- work 
and  controversial  opinions  may  be  forgotten,  as  soon  as,  by  constant  exercises 
in  useful  practical  exertion,  a  better  foundation  is  laid  for  good  and  noble  aspi- 
rations ;  that  is,  for  true  wisdom  and  true  religion. 

25  * 


146  THE  SCHOOL  IN  BONNAL. 

But  the  pastor  saw  that  he  himself  knew  little  of  any  such  management  of 
men,  and  that  the  lieutenant,  and  even  Margaret,  accomplished  more  in  that  di- 
rection than  he  did  by  preaching  for  hours,  or  by  doing  whatever  else  he  could. 
He  was  ashamed  of  himself  in  the  comparison,  but  he  aided  their  undertaking, 
learned  from  both  of  them  whatever  he  could,  and,  in  every  thing  which  he 
taught  his  children,  founded  upon  what  the  lieutenant  and  Margaret  practiced. 
But  in  proportion  as  these  latter  accustomed  their  children  to  useful  labor,  so 
much  did  he  shorten  his  verbal  instructions. 

This  he  would  gladly  have  done  long  before ;  but  he  did  not  know  how  to 
begin  it,  or  how  to  continue  it.  He  had  indeed  dreamed  of  what  the  lieutenant 
and  Margaret  were  doing ;  but  he  could  not  deprive  his  children  of  such  bene- 
fits as  were  derivable  from  the  old  system  of  instruction,  for  the  sake  of  mere 
dreams  of  what  he  could  not  execute.  But  now  that  he  saw  a  better  truth, 
and  the  advantage  of  practice  in  doing  over  practice  in  teaching,  he  followed 
after  that  better  truth,  and  in  his  age  made  giant  strides  in  the  change  of  his 
method  of  popular  instruction. 

From  this  time  forward  he  permitted  his  children  to  learn  no  more  dogmas  by 
rote — such,  for  example,  as  those  apples  of  discord,  the  questions  which  for  two 
hundred  years  have  split  good  Christians  into  so  many  parties,  and  which  cer- 
tainly, for  country  people,  have  not  made  easier  the  way  to  everlasting  life ;  for 
he  was  every  moment  more  convinced  that  man  loses  little  or  nothing  by  losing 
mere  words. 

But  while  he,  like  Luther,  with  the  help  of  God,  struck  down  the  foolish  verb- 
iage of  a  mere  mouth-religion,  still  he  did  not  serve  up  instead  of  it  a  new  0110 
of  the  same  kind,  one  of  his  own  instead  of  the  strange  one ;  but  united  his  ef- 
forts with  those  of  the  lieutenant  and  Margaret,  to  train  his  children,  without 
many  words,  to  a  peaceful  and  laborious  life  in  their  vocations;  by  constantly 
accustoming  them  to  a  wise  mode  of  life,  to  stop  up  the  sources  of  ignoble, 
shameful,  and  disorderly  practices,  and  in  this  manner  to  lay  the  foundations  of 
a  quiet  and  silent  habit  of  worship  of  God,  and  of  a  pure,  active,  and  equally 
and  silent  benevolence  to  men. 

To  attain  this  end,  he  based  every  word  of  his  brief  instructions  in  religion 
upon  the  doings  and  omissions  of  the  children,  their  circumstances  and  duties 
in  life;  so  that,  when  he  talked  with  them  of  God  and  eternity,  he  seemed  to  be 
speaking  of  father  and  mother,  of  house  and  home — of  things  closely  connected 
with  this  world. 

He  pointed  out  to  them  with  his  own  hand  the  few  wise  and  pious  portions 
which  they  were  still  made  to  learn  by  rote  from  the  book.  Of  the  rest  of  the 
prolix,  quarrelsome  gabble,  which  he  desired  to  empty  out  of  their  brains,  as 
the  summer  melts  away  the  winter  snow,  he  saved  nothing  at  all ;  and  if 
any  one  began  to  talk  to  him  about  it,  he  said  that  he  saw  more  clearly  every 
day  that  it  was  not  good  for  men  to  have  heads  filled  up  with  too  many  whys 
and  wherefores,  and  that  daily  experience  showed  that,  just  in  proportion  as 
men  carried  about  such  whys  and  wherefores  in  their  heads,  they  lost  in  their 
degree  of  natural  understanding,  and  the  daily  usefulness  of  their  hands  and 
feet.  And  he  no  longer  permitted  any  child  to  learn  a  long  prayer  by  heart ; 
saving  openly  that  it  was  contrary  to  the  express  spirit  of  Christianity,  and  to 
the  command  which  the  Saviour  gave  to  his  disciples,  "But  thou  when  thou 
prayest,"  &c. 


THE  SCHOOL  IN  BONNAL.  147 

8.      TO  BE   AS   GOOD   AS  A   MAN  CAN  BE,    HE   MUST  APPEAR  BAD. 

The  best  thing  about  him  was,  that  he  said  plainly,  all  that  he  did,  "  If  I  had 
not  seen  the  lieutenant  and  Margaret  doing  this  in  their  school-room  with  the 
children,  I  should  have  remained,  as  to  their  instruction,  even  until  death,  the 
old  pastor  in  Bonnal,  without  any  change,  just  as  I  have  been  for  thirty  years. 
T  was  not  in  a  condition  to  undertake  the  chief  parts  of  the  true  instruction  of 
these  children ;  and  all  that  I  can  do  for  it,  even  now,  is  this :  not  to  lay  any 
hindrance  in  the  way  of  the  lieutenant  and  Margaret." 

He  was  quite  right ;  for  of  the  ordinary  employments  of  men,  and  of  most 
things  upon  which  the  lieutenant  based  his  proceedings,  he  knew  nothing  what- 
ever. He  both  knew  men,  and  did  not  know  them.  He  could  describe  them 
in  such  a  way  that  you  would  have  to  say,  "  Yes,  they  are  thus."  But  he  did 
not  know  them  so  that  he  could  mingle  with  them,  and  correct  or  accomplish 
any  thing  about  them.  And  the  lieutenant  often  told  him  directly  that  he  was 
not  capable  of  accomplishing  any  real  reform  amongst  men ;  that  he  would  only 
destroy  them  with  his  goodness.  For  how  kind  soever  the  lieutenant  might 
seem  always,  no  one  could  easily  have  stricter  principles  of  education  than  he. 

He  openly  maintained,  that  "  Love  is  useless  in  the  training  of  men,  except 
behind  or  by  the  side  of  fear.  For  they  must  learn  to  root  up  thorns  and  this- 
tles ;  and  men  could  never  do  that  willingly,  never  of  themselves,  but  only  when 
they  are  obliged,  or  have  become  accustomed  to.  One  who  would  set  any  thing 
right  with  men,  or  bring  them  up  to  any  proposed  point,  must  gain  the  mastery 
of  their  evil  qualities,  must  follow  up  their  falsehood,  and  must  make  them  sweat 
with  pain,  for  their  crooked  ways.  The  education  of  men  is  nothing  except  the 
polishing  of  single  members  of  the  great  chain  by  which  all  humanity  is  bound 
together.  Faults  in  the  education  and  guidance  of  men  consist  mostly  in  this, 
that  we  take  single  links  out  of  the  chain  and  undertake  to  ornament  them,  as 
if  they  were  isolated,  and  were  not  links  belonging  to  that  great  chain ;  and 
as  if  the  power  and  usefulness  of  that  single  member  depended  upon  its  being 
gilded,  or  silvered,  or  set  with  precious  stones ;  and  not  upon  its  being  well-knit 
to  its  next  neighbors  without  any  weakening,  and  being  strongly  and  pliantly 
adapted  to  the  daily  vibrations  of  the  whole  chain,  and  to  all  its  movements." 

Thus  spoke  the  man  whose  strength  consisted  in  his  knowledge  of  the  world, 
to  the  clergyman,  whose  weakness  consisted  in  his  ignorance  of  it. 

But  it  was  the  labor  of  the  life  of  the  former  to  acquire  a  knowledge  of 
men ;  and  he  always  felt  gratitude  to  his  deceased  father,  for  having  made  this 
his  design  from  youth  up.  His  father  had  thought  many  men  good  who  were 
not,  by  reason  of  insufficient  knowledge  with  them  ;  and  the  sorrow  therefrom 
resulting  cost  him  his  life.  A  few  days  before  his  death,  he  called  Gluelphi, 
then  eleven  years  old,  to  his  bedside,  and  said,  "  Child,  trust  no  one,  all  your  life, 
until  you  have  experience  of  him.  Men  betray  and  are  betrayed ;  but  to  know 
them,  is  worth  gold.  Respect  them,  but  trust  them  not ;  and  let  it  be  your 
daily  task  to  write  down  every  evening  what  you  have  seen  and  heard." 

And  therewith  the  last  tears  came  from  his  eyes,  and  soon  they  were  closed. 
And  from  that  day,  Gluelphi  had  not  omitted,  any  evening,  to  follow  the  death- 
bed advice  of  his  father.  He  had  also  preserved  all  his  written  records,  from 
youth.  They  are  to  him  a  treasure  of  knowledge  of  human  nature;  and  ho 
calls  them  by  no  name  except  the  good  bequest  of  his  dear  deceased  father ; 


148  THE  SCHOOL  IN  BONNAL. 

and  he  often  moistens  them  with  tears.  They  make  a  thousand  heavy  hours 
pleasant  to  him,  and  have  been,  in  his  school  also,  a  guide  which  has  quickly  led 
him  to  the  object  he  has  desired. 

He  knew  the  children  in  a  week,  better  than  their  parents  in  seven  years ; 
and,  according  to  his  principles,  set  himself  to  make  them  sweat  for  pain  if  they 
undertook  to  keep  any  thing  secret  from  him,  and  especially  to  keep  their  hearts 
always  open  to  his  eyes. 

9.    HE  WHO  SEPARATES  THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  ARITHMETIC  AND  OF  SUSCEPTI- 
BILITY TO  TRUTH,  PUTS  ASUNDER  WHAT  GOD  HAS  JOINED. 

But  how  much  soever  he  cared  for  the  hearts  of  his  children,  he  took  as  mucli 
care  for  their  heads ;  and  required  whatever  went  into  them  should  be  as  clear 
and  comprehensible  as  the  silent  moon  in  the  heavens.  He  said,  "Nothing  can 
be  called  teaching,  which  does  not  proceed  in  that  principle;  what  is  obscure, 
and  deceives,  and  makes  confused,  is  not,  teaching,  but  perverting  the  mind." 

This  perversion  of  the  mind,  in  his  children,  he  guarded  against,  by  teaching 
them,  above  all,  to  see  and  hear  closely ;  and  by  laboriously  and  industriously 
teaching  them  habits  of  cool  observation,  and  at  the  same  time  by  strengthening 
in  them  the  natural  capacity  which  every  man  possesses.  To  this  end,  he  prac- 
ticed them  especially  in  arithmetic ;  in  which  he  carried  them  so  far,  within  a 
year,  that  they  very  soon  yawned  if  any  one  began  to  talk  to  them  about  the 
wonderful  puzzles  with  which  Hartknopf 's  friends  so  easily  astonished  the  rest 
of  the  people  in  the  village. 

So  true  is  it,  that  the  way  to  lead  men  away  from  error  is,  not  to  oppose  their 
folly  with  words,  but  to  destroy  the  spirit  ot  it  within  them.  To  describe  the 
night,  and  the  dark  colors  of  its  shadows,  does  not  help  you  see ;  it  is  only  by 
lighting  a  lamp,  that  you  can  show  what  the  night  was ;  it  is  only  by  couching 
a  cataract,  that  you  can  show  what  the  blindness  has  become.  Correct  seeing 
and  correct  hearing  is  the  first  step  toward  living  wisely ;  and  arithmetic  is  the 
means  by  which  nature  guards  us  from  error  in  our  searches  after  truth ;  the 
basis  of  peace  and  prosperity,  which  children  can  secure  for  their  manhood  only 
by  thoughtful  and  careful  pursuit  of  their  employments. 

For  such  reasons,  the  lieutenant  thought  nothing  so  important  as  a  right 
training  of  his  children  in  arithmetic ;  and  he  said,  "  A  man's  mind  will  not 
proceed  well,  unless  it  gains  the  habitude  of  apprehending  and  adhering  to  the 
truth,  either  by  means  of  much  experience,  or  of  arithmetical  practice,  which 
will  in  great  part  supply  the  place  of  that  habitude." 

But  his  methods  of  teaching  them  arithmetic  are  too  extended  to  be  given 
here. 

10.    A  SURE  MEANS  AGAINST  MEAN  AND  LYING  SLANDERS. 

In  this  matter  also  he  succeeded  with  the  children  as  he  desired ;  and  it  could 
not  but  happen  that  one,  who  accomplished  so  much  for  them,  should  become 
dear  to  many  people.  But  it  was  far  from  being  the  case  that  all  were  satisfied 
with  him.  The  chief  charge  against  him  was,  that  he  was  too  proud  for  a 
schoolmaster,  and  would  not  talk  with  the  people  at  all.  He  said  one  thing  and 
another  to  defend  himself,  and  tried  to  make  them  understand  that  he  was  using 
his  time  and  his  lungs  for  their  children ;  but  the  farmers  said  that,  notwith- 
standing all  that,  he  might  stop  a  moment  or  two  when  any  one  wanted  to  say 
something  to  him ;  and,  if  pride  did  not  prevent  him,  he  would. 


THE  SCHOOL  IN  BONNAL.  149 

All  the  children,  to  be  sure,  contradicted  their  parents  in  this,  and  said  that  he 
certainly  was  not  proud,  but  they  replied,  "  He  may  be  good  to  you,  and  may 
be  proud  nevertheless." 

But  the  rainy  weather,  in  the  third  week  of  his  school-keeping,  accomplished 
for  him,  what  the  good  children  could  not  do,  with  all  their  talking. 

It  was  an  established  principle  in  Bonnal,  that  an  old  bridge,  in  front  of  the 
school-house,  decayed  for  twenty  years,  should  not  be  replaced  ;  and  so,  when- 
ever it  rained  for  two  days  together,  the  children  had  to  get  wetted  almost  to 
their  knees,  to  get  to  the  school.  But  the  first  time  that  Gluelphi  found  the 
street  so  deep  in  water,  he  stood  out  in  the  street,  as  soon  as  the  children  came, 
in  the  middle  of  the  rain,  and  lifted  them,  one  after  another,  over  the  stream. 

This  looked  very  funny  to  a  couple  of  men  and  their  wives,  who  lived  just 
opposite  the  school-house,  and  who  were  exactly  those  who  had  complained 
most  that  his  pride  would  scarcely  let  him  say  good  day  and  good  night  to  peo- 
ple. They  found  great  pleasure  in  seeing  him  get  wet  through  and  through,  in 
his  red  coat,  and  thought  he  would  never  keep  at  it  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and 
expected  every  moment  that  he  would  call  out  to  them  to  know  whether  no- 
body was  coming  to  help  him.  But  when  he  continued  right  on  with  his  work, 
just  as  if  not  even  a  cat  lived  any  where  near  him,  not  to  say  a  man,  and  was 
dripping  wet,  clothes  and  hair,  and  all  over,  and  still  showed  no  shadow  of  im- 
patience, but  kept  carrying  over  one  child  after  another,  they  began  to  say,  be- 
hind their  windows,  "He  must  be  a  good-natured  fool,  after  all,  to  keep  it  up  so 
long,  and  we  seem  to  have  been  mistaken  about  him.  If  he  had  been  proud, 
he  would  certainly  have  stopped  long  ago." 

At  last  they  crept  out  of  their  holes,  and  went  out  to  him,  and  said,  u  We  did 
not  see,  before,  that  you  were  taking  so  much  trouble,  or  we  would  have  come 
out  to  you  sooner.  Go  home  and  dry  yourself;  we  will  carry  the  children  over. 
We  can  bear  the  rain  better  than  you.  And,  before  school  is  out,  we  will  bring 
a  couple  of  planks,  too,  so  that  there  shall  be  a  bridge  here,  as  there  used  to  be." 

This  they  did  not  say  merelj1-,  but  did  it.  Before  eleven  o'clock,  there  was 
actually  a  bridge  erected,  so  that  after  the  school  the  scholars  could  go  dry- 
shod  over  the  brook.  And,  also,  the  complaints  about  his  pride  ceased ;  for  the 
two  neighbors'  wives,  who  had  been  the  loudest  in  making  them,  now  sang 
quite  another  song. 

If  this  seems  incredible  to  you,  reader,  make  an  experiment  yourself,  and 
stand  out  in  the  rain  for  the  sake  of  other  people's  children,  without  being  called 
on  to  do  so,  or  receiving  any  thing  for  it,  until  you  are  dripping  wet ;  and  then 
see  whether  those  people  do  not  then  willingly  speak  good  of  you,  and  do  good 
to  you  ;  and  whether  they  say  any  thing  evil  of  you,  except  in  regard  to  some- 
thing actually  and  very  evil,  or  something  which  they  absolutely  can  not  see  and 
understand  to  be  otherwise  than  bad. 

11.    FOOLISH  WORDS,  AND  SCHOOL  PUNISHMENTS. 

But  it  was  not  long  before  the  people  had  something  else  to  complain  about ; 
and,  indeed,  something  worse  than  before.  The  Hartknopf  party  in  the  village, 
that  is,  discovered  that  the  lieutenant  was  not  a  good  Christian  ;  and  began  qui- 
etly to  make  good  and  simple  people  in  the  village  believe  it.  One  of  the  first 
to  find  comfort  in  this  story,  and  to  endeavor  to  propagate  it,  was  the  old  school- 
master. He  could  not  endure  that  all  the  children  should  so  praise  and  love 


150  THE  SCHOOL  IN  BONNAL. 

the  new  schoolmaster.  As  long  as  he  had  been  schoolmaster,  they  had  hated 
him ;  and  he  had  become  so  used  to  this,  in  thirty  years,  that  he  believed  it 
must  be  so ;  and  asserted  that  the  children,  not  being  able  to  understand  what 
is  good  for  them,  naturally  hate  all  discipline,  and  consequently  all  schoolmasters. 
But  he  made  not  much  progress  with  this  theory ;  and  he  fancied  people  were 
going  to  tell  him  that  the  children  loved  their  present  schoolmaster  because  he 
was  good  to  them. 

This  vexed  him ;  for  he  could  not  endure,  all  his  life,  to  have  it  flung  at  him 
that  his  own  foolishness  was  the  reason  that  the  children  did  not  love  him, 
although  it  was  the  honest  truth.  If  he  observed  the  least  thing  which  he  dis- 
approved, the  first  word  was,  "You  are  killing  me,  body  and  soul;  you  will 
bring  me  into  my  grave.  If  you  did  not  deserve  hell  for  any  other  reason,  you 
deserve  it  on  account  of  me ;  "  and  the  like. 

Such  language,  especially  to  children,  does  not  cause  good  feelings ;  and  they 
must  have  been  much  more  than  children  to  be  able  to  love  a  fool,  who  spoke 
to  them  in  that  way  every  moment.  They  knew  whom  they  were  dealing  with, 
and  when  he  was  most  enraged,  they  would  say  to  each  other,  "  When  we  kill 
again,  and  bring  him  some  sausages  and  meat,  we  shall  not  go  to  hell  any  more, 
at  least  as  long  as  he  has  any  of  them  left  to  eat." 

With  the  new  schoolmaster  the  case  was  quite  otherwise.  His  harshest  re- 
proofs to  the  children,  when  they  did  wrong,  were,  "That  is  not  right,"  or  "You 
are  injuring  yourself,"  or  "In  that  way  you  will  never  arrive  at  any  thing  good," 
&c.  Little  as  this  was,  it  was  effectual,  because  it  was  the  truth. 

Gluelphi's  punishments  consisted  mostly  in  exercises  intended  to  help  the 
faults  which  they  were  to  punish.  For  instance,  if  a  child  was  idle,  he  was 
made  to  carry  stone  for  the  guard-fence,  which  the  teacher  was  making  some  of 
the  older  boys  construct,  at  the  sand-meadow,  or  to  cut  fire- wood,  &c.  A  forget- 
ful one  was  made  school-messenger,  and  for  four  or  five  days  had  to  transact 
whatever  business  the  teacher  had  in  the  village. 

Even  during  his  punishments,  he  was  kind  to  the  children,  and  scarcely  ever 
talked  more  with  them  than  while  punishing  them.  "Is  it  not  better  for  you," 
he  would  often  say  to  a  careless  one,  "  to  learn  to  keep  yourself  attentive  to 
what  you  do,  than  every  moment  to  be  forgetting  something,  and  then  to  have 
to  do  every  thing  over  again?  "  Then  the  child  would  often  throw  himself  upon 
him  with  tears,  and,  with  his  trembling  hand  in  his,  would  reply,  "Yes,  dear 
Ilerr  schoolmaster."  And  he  would  then  answer,  "Good  child.  Don't  cry; 
but  learn  better ;  and  tell  your  father  and  mother  to  help  you  overcome  your 
carelessness,  or  your  idleness." 

Disobedience,  which  was  not  carelessness,  he  punished  by  not  speaking  pub- 
licly to  such  a  child,  for  three,  or  four,  or  five  days,  but  only  alone  with  him ; 
intimating  to  him,  at  the  close  of  school,  to  remain.  Impertinence  and  impro- 
priety, he  punished  in  the  same  way.  Wickedness,  however,  and  lying,  he  pun- 
ished with  the  rod ;  and  any  child  punished  with  the  rod,  was  not  permitted, 
during  a  whole  week,  to  join  in  the  children's  plays ;  and  his  name  and  his  fault 
stood  entered  in  the  Register  of  Offenses,  until  he  gave  unmistakable  evidence 
of  improvement,  when  they  were  stricken  out  again. 

So  great  was  the  difference  between  the  old  and  the  new  organization  of  the 
school. 


CHRISTOPHER   AND    ALICE. 


IN  the  year  1782,  Pestalozzi,  with  a  view  of  directing  the  attention  of 
the  readers  of  "  Leonard  and  Gertrude "  from  the  story  to  the  moral 
lessons  which  it  was  intended  to  convey,  and  to  correct  some  erroneous 
impressions  which  the  people  had  got  from  the  picture  he  had  drawn 
of  the  depravity  of  subordinate  functionaries  in  the  villages,  published 
his  "  Christopher  and  Alice"  (Chrutoph  and  Else.)  This  work  con- 
sists of  a  series  of  dialogues,  in  which  Christopher,  an  intelligent  farmer, 
discusses  with  his  family,  chapter  by  chapter,  the  history  of  Bonnal. 
The  principal  interlocutors  are,  besides  Christopher,  his  wife  Alice,  Jo- 
siah,  his  head-servant,  and  Frederic,  his  eldest  son.  Some  of  his  neigh- 
bors occasionally  drop  in,  and  take  part  in  the  discussion,  which  is  re- 
plete with  the  soundest  views  of  life,  and  of  parental  duty,  and  opportu- 
nity, conveyed  in  homely  but  expressive  language.  But  it  lacked  the 
interest  of  action,  and  never  reached  the  class  of  people  for  whose  special 
benefit  is  was  intended. 

We  extract  the  principal  portion  of  one  of  the  dialogues,  in  which 
Pestalozzi  exalts  the  training  office  of  the  mother  and  the  home  above 
that  of  the  schoolmaster  and  the  school  room — a  leading  principle  of  his 
educational  labors  through  life— one  of  the  earliest  and  latest  of  his  as- 
pirations for  the  advancement  of  his  father-land,  and  of  humanity. 

HOME  AND  SCHOOL  TRAINING.      DOMESTIC  EDUCATION. 

"  That  is  my  chapter,  father ! "  said  Alice,  when  Christopher  had  read  the 
twelfth  chapter  of  our  book  5*  "  a  pious  mother,  who  herself  teaches  her  children 
seems  to  me  to  be  the  finest  sight  on  the  earth." 

"  It  is  a  very  different  one  from  a  school  room,  at  all  events,"  said  Josiah. 

Alice.     "  I  did  not  mean  to  say  that  schools  are  not  very  good." 

Christopher.     "  Nor  would  I  allow  myself  to  think  so." 

Josiah.  "  Well,  and  it  is  true,  after  all,  that  nothing  of  what  the  schoolmaster 
can  say  will  ever  reach  children's  hearts  in  the  same  way  as  what  their  parents 
teach  them ;  and,  generally  speaking,  I  am  sure  there  is  not  in  school-going  all 
the  good  that  people  fancy  there  is." 

Christopher.  "  I  am  afraid,  Josiah,  thou  art  rather  straining  thy  point.  We 
ought  to  thank  God  for  all  the  good  that  there  is  in  the  world  ;  and,  as  for  the 
schools  in  our  country,  we  can't  thank  Him  enough  for  them." 

Josiah.  "Well  spoken,  master.  It  is  well  that  there  are  schools;  and  God 
forbid  that  I  should  be  ungrateful  for  any  good  that  it  has  done  to  us.  But,  with 
all  this,  I  think  that  he  must  be  a  fool  who,  having  plenty  at  home,  runs  about 
begging ;  and  that  is  the  very  thing  which  our  village  folks  do,  by  forgetting  all 

*  This  chapter  represents  Gertrude  in  the  midst  of  her  children,  teaching  them,  at  the 
same  time  that  they  are  engaged  in  spinning.— B. 


152  CHRISTOPHER  AND  ALICE. 

the  good  lessons  which  they  might  teach  their  children  at  home,  and,  instead 
thereof,  sending  them  every  day  to  gather  up  the  dry  crumbs  which  are  to  be  got 
in  our  miserable  schools.  I  am  sure  that  is  not  quite  as  it  ought  to  be." 
Christopher.  "  Nor  is  it,  perhaps,  quite  as  thou  hast  put  it." 
Josiah.  "  Nay,  master !  but  only  look  it  in  the  face,  and  thou'lt  surely  see  it 
the  same  as  I  do.  That  which  parents  can  teach  their  children  is  always  what 
they  stand  most  in  need  of  in  life  ;  and  it  is  a  pity  that  parents  should  neglect 
this,  by  trusting  in  the  words  which  the  schoolmaster  makes  them  get  by  heart. 
It  is  very  true,  they  may  be  good  and  wise  words,  and  have  an  excellent  mean- 
ing to  them  ;  but,  after  all,  they  are  only  words,  and  coming  from  the  mouth  of  a 
stranger,  they  don't  come  half  as  near  home  as  a  father's  or  a  mother's  words." 
Christopher.  "I  can  not  see  what  thou  would 'st  be  at,  Josiah." 
Josiah.  "  Look,  master !  The  great  point  in  bringing  up  a  child  is,  that  he 
should  be  well  brought  up  for  his  own  house ;  he  must  learn  to  know,  and  han- 
dle, and  use  those  things  on  which  his  bread  and  his  quiet  will  depend  through 
life ;  and  it  seems  to  me  very  plain,  that  fathers  and  mothers  can  teach  that 
much  better  at  home,  than  any  schoolmaster  can  do  it  in  his  school.  The  school- 
master, no  doubt,  tells  the  children  of  a  great  many  things  which  are  right  and 
good,  but  they  are  never  worth  as  much  in  his  mouth  as  in  the  mouth  of  an  up- 
right father,  or  a  pious  mother.  The  schoolmaster,  for  instance,  will  tell  the  child 
to  fear  God,  and  to  honor  his  father  and  mother,  for  that  such  is  the  word  of 
God  ;  but  the  child  understands  little  of  what  he  says,  and  mostly  forgets  it  again 
before  he  comes  home.  But  if,  at  home,  his  father  gives  him  milk  and  bread, 
and  his  mother  denies  herself  a  morsel,  that  she  may  give  it  to  him,  the  child 
feels  and  understands  that  he  ought  to  honor  his  father  and  mother,  who  are  so 
kind  to  him,  and  he  will  not  forget  his  father's  words,  which  tell  him  that  such  is 
the  word  of  God,  as  easily  as  the  empty  word  of  the  schoolmaster.  In  the  same 
way,  if  the  child  is  told  at  school  to  be  merciful,  and  to  love  his  neighbor  as  him- 
self, he  gets  the  text  by  heart,  and  perhaps  thinks  of  it  for  a  few  days,  till  the 
nice  words  slip  again  from  his  memory.  But  at  home  he  sees  a  poor  neighbor's 
wife  calling  in  upon  his  mother,  lamenting  over  her  misery,  her  hunger,  and  na- 
kedness ;  he  sees  her  pale  countenance,  her  emaciated  and  trembling  figure,  the 
very  image  of  wretchedness ;  his  heart  throbs,  his  tears  flow ;  he  lifts  up  his  eyes 
full  of  grief  and  anxiety  to  his  mother,  as  if  he  himself  was  starving ;  his  mother 
goes  to  fetch  some  refreshments  for  the  poor  sufferer,  in  whose  looks  the  child 
now  reads  comfort  and  reviving  hope ;  his  anguish  ceases,  his  tears  flow  no  lon- 
ger, he  approaches  her  with  a  smiling  face  ;  at  last  his  mother  returns,  and  her 
gift  is  received  with  sobs  of  gratitude,  which  draw  fresh  tears  from  the  child's 
eye.  Here  then  he  learns  what  it  is  to  be  merciful,  and  to  love  one's  neighbor. 
He  learns  it,  without  the  aid  of  words,  by  the  real  fact ;  he  sees  mercy  itself, 
instead  of  learning  words  about  mercy." 

Christopher.  "  I  must  own  I  begin  to  think  thou  art  not  quite  mistaken  in 
saying  that  too  much  value  is  put  upon  the  schoolmaster's  teaching." 

Josiah.  "  Of  course,  master  !  If  thou  sendest  thy  sheep  up  into  the  mount- 
ain, thou  reliest  upon  their  being  well  kept  by  the  shepherd,  who  is  paid  for  it, 
and  thou  dost  not  think  of  running  about  after  them  thyself;  but  if  thou  hast 
them  at  home,  in  thy  own  stables,  thou  lookest  after  them  thyself.  Now  it  is  just 
the  same  thing  with  the  school ;  only  there  is  this  difference,  that  it  is  easy  to 
get  for  the  sheep  pasture  which  is  infinitely  better  than  the  food  they  have  in  the 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  ALICE.  153 

stable  5  but  it  is  not  so  easy  to  find  a  school  in  which  the  children  are  better 
taught  than  they  might  be  at  home.  The  parents'  teaching  is  the  kernel  of 
wisdom,  and  the  schoolmasters  business  is  only  to  make  a  husk  over  it}  and 
there  even  is  a  great  chance  whether  it  turn  out  well." 

Alice.  "  Why,  Josiah,  thou  makest  one's  brains  whirl  all  round,  about  one's 
children.  I  think  I  see  now  what  thou  art  at ;  and  1  fancy  many  a  poor,  igno- 
rant mother,  who  now  sends  her  children  to  school,  without  thinking  any  thing 
about  it,  merely  because  it  is  the  custom  to  do  so,  would  be  very  glad  to  be  taught 
better." 

Josiah.  "  There  is  yet  another  part  of  the  story,  master.  "What  helps  the 
common  people  to  get  through  the  world,  thou  knowest,  and  to  have  their  daily 
bread,  and  a  cheerful  heart,  is  nothing  else  but  good  sense  and  natural  under- 
standing; and  I  have  never  found  in  all  my  life  a  useful  man  who  was  what  they 
call  a  good  scholar.  The  right  understanding  with  the  common  people  is,  as  it 
were,  free  and  easy,  and  shows  itself  always  in  the  proper  place  and  season  ;  so 
that  a  man's  words  don't  fit  but  at  the  very  moment  when  they  are  spoken,  and  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  before  or  after  they  would  not  fit  at  all.  But  the  school  un- 
derstanding, brings  in  all  manner  of  sayings  which  are  fit  at  all  times,  in  summer 
and  winter,  in  hot  and  cold,  in  Lent  and  at  Easter ;  and  that  is  the  reason  why 
this  school  understanding  does  not  do  any  good  to  common  people,  who  must 
regulate  themselves  according  to  times  and  seasons  ;  and  that  is  the  reason,  again, 
why  their  natural  understandings,  which  are  in  them,  ought  to  be  drawn  out 
more.  And  for  this,  there  are  no  better  teachers  than  the  house,  and  the  fath- 
er's and  mother's  love,  and  the  daily  labor  at  home,  and  all  the  wants  and  neces- 
sities of  life.  But  if  the  children  must  needs  be  sent  to  school,  the  schoolmaster 
should,  at  least,  be  an  open-hearted,  cheerful,  affectionate,  and  kind  man,  who 
would  be  as  a  father  to  the  children ;  a  man  made  on  purpose  to  open  chil  - 
dren's  hearts,  and  their  mouths,  and  to  draw  forth  their  understandings,  as  it 
were,  from  the  hindermost  corner.  In  most  schools,  however,  it  is  just  the  con- 
trary ;  the  schoolmaster  seems  as  if  he  was  made  on  purpose  to  shut  up  children's 
mouths  and  hearts,  and  to  bury  their  good  understandings  ever  so  deep  under 
ground.  That  is  the  reason  why  healthy  and  cheerful  children,  whose  hearts  are 
full  of  joy  and  gladness,  hardly  ever  like  school.  Those  that  show  best  at  school 
are  the  children  of  whining  hypocrites,  or  of  conceited  parish-officers;  stupid 
dunces,  who  have  no  pleasure  with  other  children ;  these  are  the  bright  orna- 
ments of  school  rooms,  who  hold  up  their  heads  among  the  other  children,  like 
the  wooden  king  in  the  ninepins  among  his  eight  fellows.  But,  if  there  is  a  boy 
who  has  too  much  good  sense  to  keep  his  eyes,  for  hours  together,  fixed  upon  a 
dozen  letters  which  he  hates ;  or  a  merry  girl,  who,  while  the  schoolmaster  dis- 
courses of  spiritual  life,  plays  with  her  little  hands  all  manner  of  temporal  fun, 
under  the  desk ;  the  schoolmaster,  in  his  wisdom,  settles  that  these  are  the  goats 
who  care  not  for  their  everlasting  salvation.  .  .  ." 

Thus  spoke  good  Josiah,  in  the  overflowing  of  his  zeal,  against  the  nonsense 
of  village  schools,  and  his  master  and  mistress  grew  more  and  more  attentive  to 
what  he  said. 

"  Well,  I  trust,"  said  Christopher,  at  last,  "there  still  may  be  some  other  light 
to  view  the  matter  in." 

But  Alice  replied  :  "  There  may  be  twenty  more  lights  to  view  the  matter  in, 
for  aught  I  know.  But  I  care  not ;  I  know  this  one  thing,  that  I  will  have  my 


154  CHRISTOPHER  AND  ALICE. 

children  more  about  me  in  future ;  it  seems  very  natural,  indeed,  that  fathers  and 
mothers  should  themselves  teach  their  children  as  much  as  they  possibly  can.  I 
think  there  is  a  great  deal  in  what  Josiah  says,  and  one  really  shudders,  when  one 
comes  to  reflect  what  sort  of  people  our  village  schoolmasters  generally  are. 
There  are  many  of  them,  I  know,  Christopher,  whom  thou  wouldst  not  trust 
with  a  cow,  or  a  calf,  over  winter ;  and  it  is  very  true,  that  one  ought  to  look 
more  one's  self  after  one's  children,  and  not  fancy  all  is  well,  provided  one  sends 
them  to  school." 


EVENING  HOUR  OF  A  HERMIT/ 


BY  JOHN  HENRY  PESTALOZZI. 


MAN,  as  he  is,  the  same  whether  on  a  throne  or  under  the  forest  leaves ;  man 
in  his  essence;  what  is  he?  Why  do  not  the  wise  tell  us?  Why  do  not  great 
intellects  inform  us  what  is  the  reality  of  our  race  ?  Does  a  farmer  use  oxen, 
and  not  study  to  understand  them  ?  Does  a  shepherd  not  investigate  the  nature 
of  his  sheep  ? 

And  ye  who  use  men,  and  say  that  you  protect  and  cherish  them ;  do  you 
care  for  them  as  a  farmer  does  for  his  oxen  ?  Have  you  such  care  of  them  as  a 
shepherd  over  his  sheep  ?  Is  your  wisdom  a  knowledge  of  your  race,  and  are 
your  benefits  those  of  enlightened  shepherds  of  your  people  ? 

What  man  is,  what  he  needs,  what  elevates  him  and  degrades  him,  what 
strengthens  him  and  weakens  him,  such  is  the  knowledge  needed,  both  by  a 
shepherd  of  the  people  and  by  the  inmate  of  the  most  lowly  hut. 

Everywhere,  humanity  feels  this  want.  Everywhere  it  struggles  to  satisfy 
it,  with  labor  and  eagerness.  For  the  want  of  it,  men  live  restless  lives,  and 
at  death  they  cry  aloud  that  they  have  not  fulfilled  the  purposes  of  their  being. 
Their  end  is  not  the  ripening  of  the  perfect  fruits  of  the  year,  which  in  full  com- 
pletion are  laid  away  for  the  repose  of  the  winter. 

Why  does  man  investigate  truth  without  order  or  purpose  ?  Why  does  he 
not  seek  after  what  his  nature  needs,  that  therewith  he  may  secure  pleasure  and 
blessings  for  his  life  ?  Why  does  he  not  seek  Truth,  which  will  afford  him  in- 
ward peace,  will  develop  his  faculties,  make  his  days  cheerful  and  his  years 
blessed? 

Source  of  the  deepest  peace  of  our  existence,  pure  power  of  our  nature,  bless- 
ing of  our  being,  thou  art  no  dream.  To  seek  thee,  to  investigate  after  thee,  is 
the  end  and  destiny  of  man ;  thou  art  both  a  necessity  to  me,  and  an  impulse 
from  the  deepest  part  of  my  soul,  0  end  and  destiny  of  man  I 

By  what  road  shall  I  seek  thee,  0  truth,  who  liftest  my  nature  toward  perfec- 
tion ?  Man,  driven  by  his  wants,  will  find  the  path  to  this  truth,  by  the  way  of 
his  own  inmost  soul. 

The  powers  of  conferring  blessings  upon  humanity  are  not  a  gift  of  art  or  of  acci- 
dent. They  exist,  with  their  fundamental  principles,  in  the  inmost  nature  of  all 
men.  Their  development  is  the  universal  need  of  humanity. 

Central  point  of  life,  individual  destiny  of  man,  thou  art  the  book  of  nature. 
In  thee  lieth  the  power  and  the  plan  of  that  wise  teacher ;  and  every  school 
education  not  erected  upon  the  principles  of  human  development,  leads  astray. 

The  happy  infant  learns  by  this  road  what  his  mother  is  to  him ;  and  thus 
grows  within  him  the  actual  sentiment  of  love  and  of  gratitude,  before  he  can 

*  Abendstunde  eines  Einsiedlers.— Pestalozzi,  Werke,  vol.  5,  p.  271. 


156  PESTALOZZI'S  EVENING  HOUR  OF  A  HERMIT. 

understand  the  words,  Duty  or  Thanks.  And  the  son  who  eats  his  father's 
bread,  and  is  kept  warm  from  his  flocks,  finds  by  the  same  nature-directed  way 
the  blessing  upon  his  studies,  and  his  duties  as  a  child. 

All  humanity  is  in  its  essence  the  same ;  and  to  its  content  there  is  but  one 
road.  Therefore  that  truth  which  rises  from  our  inmost  being,  is  universal  human 
truth;  and  would  serve  as  a  truth  for  the  reconciliation  of  those  who  are  quarrel- 
ing by  thousands  over  its  husks. 

Man,  it  is  thou  thyself,  the  inner  consciousness  of  thy  powers,  which  is  the 
object  of  the  education  of  nature. 

The  general  elevation  of  these  inward  powers  of  the  human  mind  to  a  pure 
human  wisdom,  is  the  universal  purpose  of  the  education  even  of  the  lowest 
men.  The  practice,  application  and  use  of  these  powers  and  this  wisdom,  under 
special  circumstances  and  conditions  of  humanity,  is  education  for  a  profession 
or  social  condition.  These  must  always  be  kept  subordinate  to  the  general 
object  of  human  training. 

"Wisdom  and  power  based  upon  simplicity  and  innocence,  are  efficient  bless- 
ings in  all  human  circumstances,  and  in  every  misfortune,  as  well  as  an  indis- 
pensable necessity  in  every  elevation  of  position. 

To  him  who  is  not  a  Man,  a  man  developed  in  his  inmost  powers,  to  him  is 
wanting  a  basis  for  an  education  suited  to  his  immediate  destiny  and  to  his 
special  circumstances,  such  as  no  external  elevation  can  excuse.  Between  the 
father  and  the  prince,  the  needy  man  struggling  with  difficulties  for  his  sustenance 
and  the  rich  oppressed  by  cares  still  more  burdensome,  the  ignorant  woman  and 
the  renowned  philosopher,  the  indolent  slumberer  and  the  genius  whose  eagle 
powers  influence  all  the  world,  there  are  wide  gulfs.  But  if  those,  in  their  lofti- 
ness, lack  real  manhood,  dark  clouds  surround  them ;  while  in  these,  a  cultiva- 
ted manhood,  pure,  elevated  and  sufficing  human  greatness,  will  of  itself  shino 
forth  from  the  lowest  hut. 

Thus  a  prince  in  his  greatness  may  long  for  a  wise  and  upright  code  of  regula- 
tions for  his  prisons,  yet  may  offer  in  vain  a  purse  filled  with  gold  for  it.  Let 
him  bring  real  manhood  into  his  council  of  war,  his  councils  of  forestry  and  of  ex- 
chequer, and  let  his  conduct  be  truly  fatherly  within  his  own  house,  and  let  him 
wisely,  earnestly  and  paternally  train  up  judges  and  protectors  for  his  prisoners. 
Without  this,  the  name  of  enlightened  laws  is,  in  the  mouth  of  heartless  men, 
only  another  name  for  selfishness. 

So  far  art  thou  perhaps,  0  Prince,  from  the  blessing  of  truth  which  you  seek. 
Meanwhile  are  laboring  in  the  dust  beneath  your  feet,  good  fathers  with  their 
ill  taught  children.  Prince,  learn  the  wisdom  applicable  to  your  prisoners  from 
the  tears  of  their  night  watchings;  and  delegate  thy  rights  over  life  and  death  to 
men  who  seek  that  wisdom  in  that  source.  Prince,  educated  humanity  is  the 
blessing  of  the  world ;  and  only  through  it  is  enlightenment  efficient,  and  wis- 
dom, and  the  inmost  blessing  of  all  laws. 

Educated  powers  of  humanity,  these  sources  of  your  mighty  deeds  and  peace- 
ful pleasures  are  no  purposeless  impulse,  nor  deceitful  error. 

The  path  of  nature,  for  developing  the  faculties  of  humanity,  must  be  open 
and  easy;  and  the  method  for  educating  men  to  true  and  satisfying  wisdom, 
simple,  and  universally  applicable. 

Nature  develops  all  the  human  faculties  by  practice;  and  their  growth 
depends  upon  their  exercise. 


PESTALOZZI'S  EVENING  HOUR  OF  A  HERMIT.  157 

The  method  of  nature  for  educating  humanity  is,  the  explanation  and  practice 
of  its  knowledge,  its  gifts,  and  its  qualities. 

Therefore  the  simplicity  and  innocence  of  that  man  are  educated  by  nature, 
who  uses  a  thorough  and  obedient  explanation  of  his  knowledge,  and  with 
silent  industry  uses  his  powers,  and  develops  them  into  a  true  human  wisdom. 
On  the  other  hand,  that  man  is  incapable  of  the  pleasure  of  the  blessings  of 
truth,  who  violates  within  himself  this  natural  order,  and  weakens  his  sensibility 
for  obedience  and  knowledge. 

Men,  fathers,  force  not  the  faculties  of  your  children  into  paths  too  distant, 
before  they  have  attained  strength  by  exercise,  and  avoid  harshness  and  over- 
fatigue. 

When  this  right  order  of  proceedings  is  anticipated,  the  faculties  of  the  mind 
are  weakened,  and  lose  their  steadiness,  and  the  equipoise  of  their  structure. 

This  you  do  when,  before  making  them  sensitive  to  truth  and  wisdom  by  the 
real  knowledge  of  actual  objects,  you  engage  them  in  the  thousand-fold  confusions 
of  word-learning  and  opinions ;  and  lay  the  foundation  of  their  mental  character 
and  of  the  first  determination  of  their  powers,  instead  of  truth  and  actual  ob- 
jects, with  sounds  and  speech — and  words. 

The  artificial  mode  of  the  schools,  which  everywhere  crowds  in  this  affair  of 
words,  instead  of  the  easy  and  slower  waiting  method  of  nature,  endows  men 
with  an  artificial  show  of  acquirement  which  ornaments  over  their  lack  of  inner 
natural  powers,  and  which  satisfies  such  times  as  the  present  century. 

The  miserable  exhausting  struggle  for  the  mere  shadow  of  truth,  the  struggle 
for  the  accent  and  sound  and  words  only,  of  truth,  where  no  interest  can  be  felt, 
and  no  application  is  practicable ;  the  subjection  of  all  the  powers  of  growing 
humanity  to  the  opinions  of  a  hard  and  one-sided  schoolmaster ;  the  thousand- 
fold niceties  of  word-changing  and  fashionable  style  of  teaching,  which  are  made 
the  basis  of  human  education — all  these  are  sad  defections  from  the  path  of 
nature. 

Moreover,  a  strict  and  stiff  adherence  to  one  order  is  not  nature's  way  of 
teaching.  If  it  were,  she  would  train  one-sided  characters ;  and  her  truth  would 
not  accommodate  itself  easily  and  freely  to  the  feelings  of  all  men. 

Such  a  severe  course  would  not  develop  the  truth  within  man  to  be  his  useful 
servant,  nor  to  be  a  good  and  affectionate  mother,  wrhose  happiness  and  wisdom 
are  the  happiness  and  necessity  of  her  children. 

The  power  of  nature,  although  unquestionably  leading  to  truth,  leads  with 
no  stiffness.  The  voice  of  the  nightingale  sounds  out  of  the  darkness ;  and  all 
the  appearances  of  nature  operate,  in  an  enlivening  freedom,  without  the  shadow 
of  constraint  anywhere,  according  to  a  prescribed  order. 

Man  loses  all  the  balance  of  his  powers,  the  efficacy  of  his  wisdom,  if  his 
mind  is  too  one-sidedly  and  forcibly  applied  to  any  subject.  Nature's  mode  of 
teaching  is  therefore  not  a  forcible  one. 

But  her  teaching  is  steady  and  consistent;  and  her  method  is  strictly 
economical. 

Education  of  man  to  truth,  thou  art  the  education  of  his  existence  and  his 
nature  to  satisfying  wisdom. 

Man  who  seekest  truth  after  this  method  of  nature,  you  will  find  it  hi  propor- 
tion as  you  make  it  your  stand  point  and  your  path. 

In  proportion  as  that  truth  is  requisite  to  your  repose  and  your  enjoyment,  as 


158  PESTALOZZI'S  EVENING  HOUR  OF  A  HERMIT. 

it  is  your  guiding  star  in  your  troubles  and  the  support  upon  which  your  life 
rests,  in  that  proportion  it  will  be  your  blessing. 

The  circle  of  knowledge,  through  which  every  man  in  his  own  place  becomes 
blessed,  begins  immediately  around  him ;  from  his  being ;  from  his  closest  rela- 
tions; extends  from  this  beginning;  and  at  every  increase  must  have  reference 
to  truth,  that  central  point  of  all  powers  for  blessing. 

Pure  sensibility  to  truth  grows  up  within  a  narrow  sphere ;  and  pure  human 
wisdom  rests  upon  the  solid  basis  of  the  knowledge  of  the  nearest  relations,  and 
of  an  educated  capacity  for  dealing  with  the  nearest  circumstances. 

This  wisdom,  which  reveals  itself  through  the  necessities  of  our  condition, 
strengthens  and  educates  our  practical  capacity ;  and  the  mental  training  which 
gives  it,  is  simple  and  steady,  consisting  of  the  action  of  all  the  powers  upon  the 
phenomena  of  nature  in  their  actual  relations ;  and  thus  it  is  related  to  truth. 

Power  and  feeling  and  practical  certainty  are  its  expressions. 

Elevating  path  of  nature,  the  truth  to  which  thou  leadest  is  power  and  action, 
origin,  training,  completion,  and  destination  of  the  whole  of  humanity. 

Thou  dost  educate  with  certainty;  not  to  a  rapid  show  of  .growth;  and  the 
son  of  nature  is  confined  by  limits ; — his  speech  is  the  expression  and  conse- 
quence of  full  knowledge  of  facts. 

The  disconnected  confusion  of  the  sciolist  is  as  little  the  basis  which  nature 
points  out. 

The  man  who  with  rapid  course  flits  about  every  subject  of  knowledge,  and 
does  not  fortify  his  acquirements  by  silent  steady  investigation,  loses  the  power 
of  observing  cheerfully,  and  with  steady  search,  and  the  still  and  genuine  pleas- 
ure of  sensibility  to  truth. 

Unsteady  will  be  the.  progress  of  that  man  who,  hi  the  hurlyburly  of  his 
sciolisms,  finds,  to  be  sure,  material  for  many  words,  but  sacrifices  to  them  the 
quietness  of  real  wisdom.  Amidst  his  noisy  pride,  you  will  discover,  close 
around  him,  in  the  place  where  the  power  of  a  blessed  wisdom  would  beam 
brightly,  only  empty  solitudes  and  darkness. 

Also  the  slothful  empty  wastes  of  dark  ignorance  lead  away  from  the  path  of 
nature.  Lack  of  knowledge  of  thy  nature,  0  man,  contracts  the  limits  of  thy 
knowledge,  more  than  the  necessities  of  thy  being.  Misapprehension  of  the  first 
principles  of  thy  condition,  deadly  oppressive  tyranny,  withholding  of  all  the 
pleasures  of  truth  and  blessing ;  unnatural  want  of  general  national  enlighten- 
ment in  relation  to  the  most  important  actual  needs  and  relations  of  men,  over- 
cloud and  darken  thee,  as  the  deep  shadow  of  night  darkens  the  earth. 

The  effect  of  actual  life  in  opposition  to  the  inner  consciousness  of  right,  un- 
dermines our  power  of  recognizing  truth,  and  perverts  the  purity  of  the  lofty 
and  noble  simplicity  of  our  fundamental  ideas  and  susceptibilities. 

Therefore,  all  human  wisdom  is  based  upon  the  strength,  of  a  good  heart,  and 
one  obedient  to  truth ;  and  all  human  blessings,  upon  its  simplicity  and  inno- 
cence. 

Education  of  humanity  in  this  purity  of  simplicity  and  innocence,  thou  art 
the  guardian  of  humanity,  who  dost  protect  and  guide  rightly  the  undestroyed 
principles  of  the  heart,  in  the  course  of  their  mental  development. 

Man  must  be  trained  to  inward  peace.  Content  with  one's  condition,  and 
with  the  pleasures  attainable  in  it,  patience,  reverence  and  faith  in  the  love  of 
the  Father  under  all  restrictions,  that  is  the  right  training  to  wisdom. 


PESTALOZZI'S  EVENING  HOUR  OF  A  HERMIT.  159 

"Without  inward  peace,  man  wanders  about  in  wild  ways.  Thirst  and  longing 
after  impossible  forms,  deprive  him  of  every  pleasure  which  present  blessings 
offer,  and  of  all  the  powers  of  a  wise,  patient,  and  obedient  spirit.  If  the  feel- 
ings are  not  regulated  by  inward  peace,  their  power  destroys  the  inward  strength 
of  the  man,  and  plagues  him  with  dark  tortures,  in  days  during  which  the  cheer- 
ful wise  man  would  laugh. 

The  discontented  man  worries  himself  within  his  happy  home,  because  his 
dancing  at  the  festival,  his  violin  at  the  concert,  his  address  hi  the  public  hall, 
•were  not  distinguished. 

Peace,  and  quiet  pleasure,  are  the  first  purposes  of  human  education,  and  its 
darling  children.  Man,  thy  knowledge  and  ambition  must  be  subordinate  to 
these  high  purposes,  or  thy  curiosity  and  ambition  will  become  gnawing  agonies 
and  curses. 

Man,  thou  livest  not  for  thyself  alone,  on  earth.  Nature  educates  thee  for 
relations  with  those  without  thee. 

In  proportion  as  these  relations  are  near  to  thee,  0  man,  are  they  important 
for  the  training  of  thy  being  for  its  ends.  . 

The  complete  mastery  over  a  near  relation,  is  a  source  of  wisdom  and  power 
over  more  distant  ones. 

Fatherhood  trains  princes,  brotherhood,  citizens,  Both  produce  order  in  the 
family  and  in  the  state. 

The  domestic  relations  of  man  are  the  first  and  most  important  relations  of 
nature. 

Man  labors  in  his  calling,  and  endures  the  burden  of  a  citizen's  labor,  that 
thereby  he  may  enjoy  in  quiet,  the  pure  blessings  of  his  domestic  happiness. 

Therefore  the  education  of  man  for  his  professional  and  social  position,  must 
be  subordinated  to  the  ultimate  purpose,  the  pleasures  of  his  pure  domestic 
happiness. 

Therefore  art  thou,  home,  the  origin  of  all  the  purely  natural  education  of 
humanity. 

Home,  thou  school  of  morals  and  of  the  state. 

First,  man,  thou  art  a  child ;  afterward  an  apprentice  in  thy  calling. 

Childish  virtue  is  the  blessing  of  thy  days  of  learning ;  and  the  first  training 
of  thy  faculties  to  the  enjoyment  of  all  the  blessings  of  thy  life. 

"Whoever  departs  from  this  natural  order,  and  forces  an  unnatural  education 
for  state,  vocation,  authority,  or  servitude,  turns  humanity  aside  from  the  enjoy- 
ment of  the  most  natural  blessings,  to  voyage  upon  a  rocky  sea. 

See  ye  not,  0  men,  feel  ye  not,  sons  of  earth,  how  your  upper  classes  have  lost 
their  inner  powers  by  their  education?  Seest  thou  not,  humanity,  how  their 
divergence  from  the  wise  order  of  nature,  brings  empty  and  barren  curses  upon 
them  and  from  them  downward  amongst  their  people?  Feelest  thou  not,  0 
Earth,  how  the  human  race  wanders  away  from  the  happiness  of  its  domestic 
relations,  and  everywhere  crowds  to  wild  glittering  shows,  to  make  game  of 
wisdom  and  to  tickle  its  ambition  ? 

Erring  humanity  wanders  afar  off. 

God  is  the  nearest  resource  for  humanity. 

Even  thy  family.  0  man,  and  the  wisest  of  thy  pleasures,  will  not  last  thee 
forever. 

To  suffer  pain  and  death  and  the  grave,  without  God,  thy  nature,  educated  to 
mildness,  goodness,  and  feeling,  has  no  power. 


160  PESTALOZZI'S  EVENING  HOUR  OP  A  HERMIT. 

In  God,  as  the  father  of  thy  house,  the  source  of  thy  blessings,  in  God  as  thy 
father : — in  this  belief  findest  thou  peace  and  power  and  wisdom  which  no  pain 
nor  the  grave,  can  shake. 

Faith  in  God  is  a  tendency  of  human  feeling,  in  its  highest  condition ;  it  is 
the  confiding  childlike  trust  of  humanity,  in  the  fatherhood  of  God. 

Faith  in  God  is  the  fountain  of  peace  in  life ;  peace  in  life  is  the  fountain  of 
inward  order ;  inward  order  is  the  fountain  of  the  unerring  application  of  our 
powers ;  and  this  again  is  the  source  of  the  growth  of  those  powers,  and  of  their 
training  in  wisdom ;  wisdom  is  the  spring  of  all  human  blessings. 

Thus,  faith  in  God  is  the  source  of  all  wisdom  and  all  blessings,  and  is  nature's 
road  to  the  pure  education  of  man. 

Faith  in  God,  thou  art  buried  deep  in  the  being  of  man.  As  the  sense  of 
good  and  evil,  as  the  ineradicable  sense  of  right  and  wrong,  so  immovably  fast 
art  thou  lodged  in  our  inmost  nature,  as  a  foundation  for  human  development. 

Faith  in  God,  thou  art  the  portion  of  the  people  in  every  misery,  in  every 
clime.  Thou  art  the  power  of  men  in  every  exaltation,  and  their  strength  in 
ev6ry  adversity. 

Faith  in  God,  thou  art  not  a  sequel  and  result  of  educated  wisdom ;  thou  art 
a  pure  endowment  of  simplicity ;  the  hearkening  ear  of  innocence  to  the  voice 
of  nature,  whose  father  is  God. 

Childlikeness  and  obedience  are  not  the  result  and  invariable  consequence  of 
a  complete  education ;  they  must  be  the  primitive  and  spontaneous  first  princi- 
ples of  human  training. 

The  wonder  of  wise  men  in  the  depth  of  creation,  and  their  searches  into  the 
abysses  of  the  creator,  are  not  an  education  to  this  faith.  In  the  abysses  of 
creation,  the  searcher  can  lose  himself  and  in  its  waters  he  can  wander  ignorantly, 
for  away  from  the  fountains  of  the  bottomless  ocean. 

God,  father ;  God,  an  existence  within  the  dwellings  of  men ;  God,  within  my 
own  inmost  being;  God,  the  giver  of  his  own  gifts  and  of  the  pleasures  of  my 
life ; — he  is  the  training  of  man  to  this  faith  ;  this  is  the  power  of  nature,  who 
bases  all  faith  upon  pleasure  and  experience. 

Otherwise,  arouse  thyself,  0  man — I  call  upon  the  people — arouse,  0  man,  to 
the  lesson  of  preponderating  goodness.  Let  this  encourage  or  soothe  thee ;  that 
either  happiness  will  on  the  whole  preponderate.  When  the  flames  of  misery 
burn  over  thy  head  and  destroy  thee,  will  this  dictum  of  wise  men  support  thee  ? 

But  when  thy  Father  strengthens  thee  inwardly,  makes  thy  days  cheerful, 
lifts  thy  being  above  all  sorrows,  and  develops  within  thyself  an  overbalance  of 
blessed  enjoyments ;  then  thou  enjoyest  the  education  of  nature  to  faith  in  God. 

The  bread  which  my  child  eats  from  my  hand  develops  its  child's  feelings ; 
not  its  wonder  at  my  night  watches  and  my  care  over  its  after  years.  Much 
judgment  upon  my  deeds  would  be  folly,  and  might  lead  its  heart  astray,  and 
away  from  me. 

Simplicity  and  innocence,  pure  human  feelings  of  thankfulness  and  love,  are 
the  source  of  faith. 

On  the  pure  childlike  nature  of  men,  is  based  the  hope  of  everlasting  life ; 
and  a  pure  human  faith  in  God  is  not  possible  for  it  without  this  hope. 

The  tread  of  a  tyrant  upon  his  brethren,  upon  the  children  of  his  God,  makes 
the  inmost  soul  of  humanity  to  shudder.  The  widows  and  orphans  of  the  ranks 
of  his  victims  wail,  tremble,  hunger,  believe,  and  die. 


PESTALOZZI'S  EVENING  HOUR  OF  A  HERMIT.  161 

If  God  is  the  father  of  men,  then  the  day  of  their  death  is  not  the  day  of  the 
fulfillment  of  their  existence. 

If  there  is  any  perception  of  truth  in  thee,  0  man,  speak.  Does  it  not  con- 
flict with  thine  inmost  convictions,  to  believe  that  God  is  the  father  of  men,  and 
also  that  the  lives  of  these  wretches  are  completed  so  ? 

God  is  not  the  father  of  men,  or  else  death  is  not  the  completion  of  our  life. 

Man,  thy  inward  sense  is  a  sure  guide  to  truth  and  to  thy  duty ;  and  dost  thou 
doubt,  when  this  sense  summons  thee  to  immortality? 

Believe  in  thyself,  0  man ;  believe  in  the  inward  intelligence  of  thine  own 
soul ;  thus  shalt  thou  believe  in  God  and  immortality. 

God  is  the  father  of  humanity ;  God's  children  are  immortal. 

"Within  thine  inmost  being,  0  man,  lies  that  which  with  faith  and  reverence 
recognizes  truth,  innocence  and  simplicity. 

But  simplicity  and  innocence  are  not  possessed  by  all  men. 

To  many,  this  inward  consciousness  of  humanity  is  a  mere  dream ;  and  faith 
in  God  and  immortality,  based  upon  this  inner  consciousness,  a  contempt  and  a 
reproach. 

God,  who  within  my  being  dost  with  strength  and  power  teach  me  truth, 
wisdom,  holiness,  faith  and  immortality ;  God,  who  hearest  all  the  children  of 
God ; — God,  whom  all  the  good,  feeling,  pure  and  loving  among  men  understand 
all  alike ; — God,  shall  I  not  listen  to  the  lessons  within  my  inmost  nature,  which 
are  true  and  which  must  be  true  ?  Shall  I  not  believe  what  I  am  and  what  I  do  ? 

Faith  in  God  causes  a  separation  of  men  into  the  children  of  God  and  the 
children  of  the  world.  Faith  in  the  fatherhood  of  God  is  faith  in  immortality. 

God,  father  of  man ;  Man,  child  of  God ;  this  is  the  aim  of  faith. 

This  faith  in  God  is  a  tendency  of  man  in  his  relations  to  his  blessings. 

Parental  love  and  filial  love,  these  blessings  of  thy  house,  0  man,  are  results 
of  faith. 

Thy  rightful  enjoyments,  husband  and  father,  the  pleasant  submission  of  thy 
wife  and  the  deep  and  soul- elevating  gratitude  of  thy  children,  are  the  results 
of  thy  faith  in  God. 

Faith  in  my  own  father,  who  is  a  child  of  God,  is  a  training  for  my  faith  in 
God. 

My  faith  in  God  is  a  reinforcement  of  my  faith  in  God,  and  of  every  duty  of 
my  house. 

So,  0  elevating  nature,  thou  dost  bind  together,  in  thy  discipline,  my  duties 
and  my  pleasures ;  and  at  thy  hand  man  is  guided  from  pleasures  enjoyed  to 
new  duties. 

All  humanity,  prince  or  subject,  master  or  servant,  is  disciplined  for  the 
especial  duties  of  its  station  by  the  enjoyment  of  its  most  intimate  natural 
relations. 

The  prince  who  is  the  child  of  his  God,  is  the  child  of  his  father. 

The  prince  who  is  child  of  his  father,  is  father  of  his  people. 

The  subject  who  is  child  of  his  God,  is  child  of  his  father. 

The  subject  who  is  child  of  his  father,  is  child  of  his  prince. 

Station  of  prince,  representation  of  God,  father  of  the  nation.  Station  of 
subject,  child  of  the  prince,  are  each,  the  child  of  God.  How  soft  and  strong 
and  subtle  is  this  interweaving  of  the  natural  relations  of  humanity. 

0  humanity  in  thy  loftiness ! 

26 


162  PESTALOZZI'S  EVENING  HOUR  OF  A  HERMIT. 

But  vain  is  the  sense  of  thy  worth,  to  a  degraded  people. 

I  scarcely  venture  to  name  thy  rank,  householder.  "What  art  thou,  and  what 
canst  thou  be?  An  ox  for  sale?  The  master  of  thy  house.  The  representa- 
tive of  the  prince,  within  thy  hut,  0  man  in  thy  degradation!  0  Lord  and 
Father  of  all  I 

In  whatever  low  state,  the  servant  is  in  his  essence  like  his  master ;  and  is  by 
nature  entitled  to  the  satisfaction  of  his  necessities. 

For  the  raising  of  the  people  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  proper  blessings  of  their 
existence,  are  the  high  the  fathers  of  the  low. 

And  all  the  people  depend,  for  the  enjoyment  of  their  domestic  happiness, 
upon  their  pure  childlike  confidence  in  the  paternal  feeling  of  their  lords ;  and 
upon  the  fulfillment  of  the  paternal  duties  of  their  lords,  for  the  education  and 
elevation  of  their  children  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  blessings  of  humanity. 

Is  this  expectation  of  men  a  dream  ?  Is  their  childlike  expectation  a  mere 
vision  in  their  sleep  and  weariness  of  their  degradation  ? 

Faith  in  God,  thou  art  the  strength  of  their  hope. 

Princes  who  believe  in  God,  and  understand  the  brotherhood  of  men,  find  in 
this  belief  a  stimulus  to  every  duty  of  their  station.  They  are  men  trained  by 
divine  power  for  the  blessing  of  their  people. 

Princes  who  disbelieve  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  men, 
find  in  this  unbelief  the  sources  of  a  terrible  annihilation  of  their  recognition  of 
their  duties.  They  are  men  of  terror ;  and  their  power  works  destruction.  In 
the  recognition  of  the  supreme  paternal  authority  of  God,  princes  assume  to 
themselves  the  obedience  of  their  people  as  a  religious  duty. 

And  the  prince  who  does  not  found  his  own  rights  and  duties  upon  obedience 
to  God,  founds  his  throne  upon  the  mutable  sands  of  popular  belief  in  his  own 
power. 

Faith  in  God  is  in  this  view  the  bond  of  union  between  prince  and  subjects ; 
the  bond  of  the  intimate  connection  amongst  the  relations  of  men  for  happiness. 

Unbelief,  disbelief  in  the  brotherhood  and  fraternal  duties  of  man,  disrecogni- 
tion  and  contempt  of  the  paternal  rights  of  God,  obstinate  hardiness  in  the  mis- 
use of  power,  are  the  dissolution  of  all  the  pure  bonds  of  the  happy  relations  of 
humanity. 

The  clergy  are  the  announcers  of  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  of  the  brother- 
hood of  men ;  and  their  station  is  the  central  point  of  union  between  the  natural 
relations  of  men,  and  the  blessings  which  come  from  faith  in  God. 

Faith  in  God  is  the  source  of  all  the  pure  paternal  and  filial  feelings  of  men ; 
the  source  of  all  uprightness. 

Faith  in  God  without  paternal  or  filial  feeling,  is  a  mere  glittering  nonentity, 
without  power  for  blessing. 

The  haughty  administration  of  laws,  the  passing  of  sentences  according  to  the 
ancient  blasphemies  which  have  grown  up  in  the  studies  of  the  law  and  the 
courts,  is  a  mummery  in  imitation  of  justice,  and  no  blessing  to  the  people. 

Security  and  innocence,  those  sources  of  pure  virtue  among  the  people,  those 
consequences  of  wise  and  fatherly  justice,  are  consequences  of  faith. 

Hardy  and  outrageous  attacks  upon  innocence,  right  and  truth,  those  evi- 
dences of  the  absence  of  a  paternal  feeling  in  the  administration  of  the  laws  of 
a  country,  are  the  consequences  of  unbelief. 

Violence  and  impudent  bold  usurpation  contrary  to  right  and  innocence,  in 


PESTALOZZI'S  EVENING  HOUR  OF  A  HERMIT.  163 

the  spirit  of  a  nation,  are  sources  of  national  powerlessness ;  and  thus  unbelief 
is  a  source  of  such  powerlessness. 

And  on  the  other  hand,  fatherly  and  childlike  feelings  in  the  national  spirit, 
are  the  sources  of  all  pure  national  blessings. 

In  like  manner,  the  belief  in  God  among  the  people,  is  a  source  of  all  pure 
national  virtue,  all  popular  blessings,  and  all  national  power. 

Sin  is  the  source  and  consequence  of  unbelief.  It  is  the  action  of  men  con- 
trary to  the  inner  teachings  of  our  nature  as  to  right  and  wrong.  Sin,  the 
source  of  the  perversion  of  our  first  fundamental  ideas,  and  of  our  pure  natural 
feelings.  Sin,  the  destruction,  0  man,  of  thy  faith  in  thyself]  and  in  thine  in- 
ward nature,  destruction  of  thy  faith  in  God,  of  thy  childlike  feelings  toward  him. 

Open  sin ;  defiance  of  God  by  man. 

Abhorrence  of  sin;  pure  feeling  of  the  childlike  relation  of  man  to  God,  ex- 
pression and  result  of  the  faith  of  humanity  in  the  revelation  of  God  within  its 
own  nature. 

Abhorrence  of  open  sin :  feelings  of  a  child  toward  a  man  who  insults  his 
father  and  mother. 

National  abhorrence  of  a  people  against  public  sinners ;  pledge  and  seal  of 
national  faith,  and  of  the  childlike  feelings  of  the  people  toward  their  supreme 
head. 

National  abhorrence  by  a  people  of  the  open  defiance  by  their  prince  of  God, 
is  a  sign  of  national  virtue,  and  of  the  weakening  of  the  faith  and  obedience  of 
the  people  toward  their  supreme  head. 

Unbelief;  source  of  the  destruction  of  all  the  inner  bonds  of  society. 

Unbelief  in  rulers ;  source  of  disobedience  in  subjects. 

Paternal  feeling  and  paternal  treatment  by  rulers  establishes  and  assures  the 
obedience  of  subjects. 

Unbelief  destroys  the  source  of  obedience. 

Under  a  ruler  who  is  not  a  father,  the  tendency  of  the  people  can  not  be 
toward  the  understanding  of  a  popular  character,  pure  in  thought  and  happy  in 
childlike  obedience. 

The  consequences  of  unbelief: — Daily  increasing  burdens,  daily  decreasing 
paternal  goodness,  arbitrary  exertion  of  power  for  no  good  purpose,  fantastic 
and  unnatural  abuses  of  governmental  authority,  oppressive  intermediate  officers, 
decrease  of  power  in  the  people  to  oppose  them,  are  among  the  inevitable  con- 
sequences of  a  government  without  faith ;  which  despises  the  rights  of  God  and 
of  humanity. 

The  perception  by  the  people  of  the  perversion  of  paternal  authority  is  the 
dissolution  of  the  pure  bonds  of  nature  between  the  prince  and  his  people. 

Thou,  good  and  motherly  nature,  dost  knit  the  bands  of  social  relations 
through  the  blessings  of  mutual  happiness. 

And  it  is  the  popular  perception,  the  national  feeling  of  the  blessing  of  this 
happiness,  which  blesses  and  sanctifies  these  relations  through  the  gratitude, 
love  and  faith  of  the  people  toward  their  ruler.  Here  therefore  is  the  sacred 
source  of  all  patriotism  and  civic  virtue. 

I  am  touching  strings  unused,  and  not  accordant  with  fashionable  tones. 
Despise  the  sound,  dance-music,  trilling  calumnies,  and  drown  my  voice; 
leaving  pure  humanity  and  truth  unnoticed. 

All  the  powers  of  humanity  only  accomplish  blessings  through  faith  in  God; 
12 


164  PESTALOZZI'S  EVENING  HOUR  OF  A  HERMIT. 

and  the  paternal  character  of  princes,  the  only  sources  of  blessings  for  the  peo- 
ple, are  the  consequence  of  this  faith  in  God. 

Man,  how  low  thou  standest  1  If  thy  prince  is  a  child  of  God,  his  authority 
is  paternal. 

Harsh  and  insolent  exercise  of  authority  is  not  paternal ;  is  not  a  sign  of  faith 
in  God.  It  is  the  destruction  of  the  highest  attributes  of  both  prince  and 
country;  of  the  pure  childlike  feeling  of  the  people  toward  the  prince. 

I  can  not  apply  to  such  conduct,  although  so  common  among  penetrating 
minds  in  the  service  of  princes,  the  name  of  high  treason. 

But  what  Jess  is  it,  when  they  interpret  the  paternal  authority  of  the  prince 
to  include  the  right  of  both  good  and  evil,  of  both  right  and  wrong? 

"What  less  is  it,  when  in  the  prince's  name  they  destroy  the  happiness  of 
households,  rob  them  of  their  goods,  and  cover  innocence  with  infamy  and 
shame  ? 

Bond  of  union  between  humanity  and  its  blessings,  belief  of  prince  and  peo- 
ple in  the  supreme  Lord  of  humanity,  faith  in  God,  thou  alone  protectest  man- 
kind from  such  perils. 

All  unbelief  is  arrogant ;  but  faith  in  God,  the  childlike  feeling  of  humanity 
toward  God,  gives  a  quiet  sublimity  to  every  exertion  of  its  powers. 

A  brilliant  and  flashing  creation  of  humanity,  is  that  hardy  laughing  courage 
at  danger  and  destruction,  which  is  a  human  power ;  but  it  is  unfavorable  to  a 
childlike  feeling  toward  God. 

Diligent  economical  use  of  every  gift,  aspiration  after  the  strengthening  of  the 
faculties,  is  the  path  of  nature  to  the  development  and  strengthening  of  all  the 
powers ;  and  in  every  degradation  and  every  weakness  this  is  an  inclination  of 
the  pure  childlikeness  of  humanity  to  God. 

A  proneness  to  degrading  shadows,  impulse  to  make  sport  with  the  faculties 
and  powers,  and  to  hide  its  weaknesses,  is  a  mark  of  the  lowest  and  weakest 
humanity,  turned  aside  from  the  natural  order  of  development. 

Outward  and  inward  human  nobleness,  cultivated  in  the  natural  method,  is 
understanding  and  paternal  feelings  toward  a  lower  order  of  endowment. 

Man,  in  thy  elevation,  use  thy  powers  for  this  purpose. 

Paternal  exercise  of  high  endowments  toward  the  undeveloped  and  weak  flock 
of  common  humanity. 

Pure  blessing  of  humanity,  thou  art  the  power  and  the  result  of  faith. 

0  my  cell,  pleasure  be  within  thee !     Thou  also  art  a  consequence  of  this  faith. 

Hail,  myself  and  my  hut  I 

In  order  that  humanity  may  believe  in  God,  I  abide  in  this  hut. 

The  faith  of  the  people  in  the  true  ministers  of  God  is  the  source  of  the  peace- 
fulness  of  my  life. 

The  priests  of  God  are  the  representatives  of  the  pure  paternal  relation  of 
humanity. 

Thy  power  consecrated,  is  the  enlightenment  of  God. 

God's  enlightenment  is  love,  wisdom,  and  fatherhood. 

0  thou  who  wanderest  near  my  hut,  would  that  I  were  even  a  shadow  of  the 
power  of  my  God. 

0  Sun,  thou  picture  of  his  power,  thy  day  is  completed.  Thou  goest  down 
behind  my  mountain,  0  day  of  my  completion.  0  hope  of  the  coming  morning, 
0  power  of  my  faith. 


PESTALOZZI'S  EVENING  HOUR  OF  A  HERMIT.  KJ5 

I  base  all  freedom  upon  justice ;  but  I  see  no  certain  justice  in  this  world, 
except  that  inspired  by  simplicity,  piety  and  love,  and  in  humanity  as  enlightened 
by  this  inspiration. 

All  family  administration  of  justice,  which  is  the  greatest,  purest  and  most 
generally  enjoyed  in  all  the  world,  has  as  a  whole  no  source  except  love ;  and 
yet,  in  the  simplicity  of  all  the  nations,  it  accomplishes  the  general  blessing  of 
the  world. 

As  all  justice  rests  upon  love,  so  does  freedom  upon  justice.  Pure  childlike- 
ness  is  the  real  source  of  freedom,  which  rests  upon  justice ;  and  pure  father- 
hood is  the  source  of  all  such  government  as  is  elevated  enough  to  do  justice, 
and  to  love  freedom. 

And  the  source  of  justice  and  of  all  worldly  blessings,  the  sources  of  the  love 
and  brotherhood  of  men,  these  rest  upon  the  great  idea  of  religion :  that  we  are 
the  children  of  God,  and  that  the  belief  in  this  truth  is  the  sure  foundation  of 
all  human  happiness.  In  this  great  idea  of  religion  lies  the  spirit  of  all  true 
political  wisdom  which  seeks  the  real  happiness  of  the  people  ;  for  all  the  moral 
faculties,  all  enlightenment  and  human  wisdom,  rest  upon  the  same  basis  of  the 
faith  of  humanity  in  God. 

Forgetfulness  of  God,  neglect  of  the  filial  relation  of  humanity  to  God,  is  the 
source  of  the  destruction  of  all  the  power  of  morality,  enlightenment  and  wis- 
dom, for  the  blessing  of  humanity.  Therefore  is  this  loss  of  filial  feeling  toward 
God  the  greatest  of  human  misfortunes,  since  it  renders  all  God's  paternal  in- 
struction impossible ;  and  the  restoration  of  this  lost  filial  feeling  is  the  salvation 
of  the  lost  children  of  God  on  earth. 

The  man  of  God  who  through  the  sorrows  and  death  of  humanity  re-estab- 
lishes this  universally  lost  filial  feeling  toward  God,  is  the  saviour  of  the  world, 
the  sacrificed  priest  of  God,  the  mediator  between  God  and  God-forgetting 
humanity.  His  teachings  are  pure  justice,  an  instructive  philosophy  for  all  peo- 
ple ;  the  revelation  of  God  the  Father  to  the  lost  race  of  his  children. 


VII.    PESTALOZZI/-TEACHING  AS  THE  FATHER  OF  A  FAMILY. 

[FROM  BIBER'S  LIFE  OF  PESTALOZZI.] 


THE  spirit  in  which  Pestalozzi  presided  over  his  house  can  not  be 
better  described  than  by  his  own  words,  in  the  discourses  which  he 
addressed  to  the  whole  family  every  Christmas  Eve  and  New-Year's 
Day.  One  of  these,  delivered  on  Christmas  Eve,  1810,  will  be  read 
with  interest,  as  it  is  not  only  a  faithful  expression  of  the  tone  which 
he  maintained  in  his  establishment,  but  affords,  at  the  same  time,  a 
pleasing  picture  of  that  peculiarity  of  continental  custom,  by  which 
Christmas  Eve  and  New-Year's  Day  are  consecrated  as  the  two  great 
family  festivals. 

Children,  sons  and  daughters  of  this  house,  and  ye  matured  men,  my  friends 
and  brethren ! 

What  is  there  in  this  day  that  calls  for  rejoicing !  For  nearly  twice  ten  cen- 
turies, this  hour  has  ever  been  an  hour  of  gladness !  Is  its  joy,  peradventure, 
worn  out  with  age,  and  do  we  possess  no  more  than  the  dregs  and  forms  of  its 
sacred  solemnity?  If  so,  I  would  rather  not  partake  in  it;  I  would  not  rejoice, 
but  mourn,  in  this  hour  of  ancient  joy.  And  I  ask  :  That  ancient  joy,  what  was 
it  ?  And  I  look  around  me,  to  see  what  it  is  now.  I  have  heard  of  the  ancients, 
and  I  have  partly  seen  it  in  my  own  days,  that  Christmas  Eve  was  a  night  on  the 
earth  above  all  earthly  nights.  Its  shades  were  brighter  than  the  noon-day  of 
highest  earthly  joy.  The  anniversaries  of  national  emancipation  from  the  thral- 
dom of  tyranny  were  not  to  be  compared  to  that  heavenly  night,  the  night  of 
heavenly  rejoicing.  Through  the  holy  silence  of  its  service  resounded  the  words : 
"  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth  peace,  and  unto  men  purity  of  heart." 
It  was  as  if  the  angels  were  again  gathering  together  over  the  heads  of  men  in 
that  hour,  praising  God  that  a  Saviour  was  born  unto  the  world.  Oh !  in  those 
days,  Christmas  Eve  was  indeed  a  holy  night,  whose  joys  no  words  can  describe, 
its  bliss  no  tongue  declare.  The  earth  was  changed  into  a  heaven  every  such 
night.  God  in  the  highest  was  glorified,  on  earth  there  was  peace,  and  gladness 
among  the  children  of  men.  It  was  a  joy  flowing  from  the  innermost  sanctuary  of 
the  heart,  not  a  joy  of  human  affection.  The  joys  of  human  affection  are  tied  to 
place  and  outward  circumstances  5  they  are  individual  joys.  But  the  joy  of  our 
ancient  Christmas  Eve  was  a  universal  joy,  it  was  the  common  joy  of  humankind  ; 
for  it  was  not  a  human,  but  a  divine  rejoicing. 

Friends  and  brethren,  and  ye,  my  children  ;  Oh  that  I  could  lead  you  back  to 
Christendom  of  old,  and  show  you  the  solemnity  of  this  hour  in  the  days  of  sim- 
plicity and  faith,  when  half  the  world  was  ready  to  suffer  death  for  the  faith  in 
Christ  Jesus ! 

My  friends  and  brethren !     Oh  that  I  could  show  you  the  joys  of  Christmas 


PESTALOZZI  AS  THE  FATHER  OF  A  FAMILY.  IQ>J 

Eve  in  the  mirror  of  those  days !  The  Christian  stood  at  this  hour  in  the  midst 
of  his  brethren,  his  heart  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  his  hand  with  earthly 
gifts.  Thus  stood  the  mother  among  her  children,  the  master  among  his  work- 
men, the  landlord  among  his  tenants.  Thus  assembled  the  congregation  before 
its  pastor  5  thus  the  rich  entered  the  cottage  of  the  poor.  This  was  the  hour  in 
which  enemies  offered  each  other  the  hand  of  reconciliation,  in  which  the  heavily 
laden  sinner  knelt  down,  praying  in  tears  for  the  pardon  of  his  transgressions,  and 
rejoicing  in  his  heart  that  a  Saviour  was  born  to  take  away  sin. 

This  hour  of  heavenly  joy  was  an  hour  of  sanctification  5  the  earth  was  a 
heaven-like  earth,  and,  though  the  dwelling-place  of  mortal  man,  breathed  the 
breath  of  immortality.  Death  and  sorrow  seemed  to  have  departed  from  the 
earth.  The  holy  joys  of  that  night  lightened  the  burdens  of  the  poor,  and  eased 
the  pangs  of  the  wretched.  Prisoners,  who  had  long  been  shut  out  from  the  light 
of  day,  were  liberated  on  that  night,  and  returned,  as  if  led  by  an  angel  of  God, 
to  their  desolate  homes,  to  their  wives  and  children,  who  were  kneeling,  weeping, 
and  praying  for  their  deliverance ;  for  the  heart  of  the  judge  had  softened  itself 
in  the  joy,  that  to  him  too  a  Saviour  was  born,  and  it  had  grown  milder  toward 
his  fellow-men,  his  enemy,  and  his  captive.  Even  the  criminal  under  sentence 
of  death,  whom  no  human  power  could  rescue  from  his  fate,  was  more  kindly 
treated  5  words  of  peace,  words  of  life  everlasting,  instilled  comfort  into  his 
trembling  nerves.  He  felt  not  merely  his  guilt  and  misery;  he  felt  the  pardon 
of  iniquity,  and  when  his  hour  drew  near,  he  went  to  meet  his  end  with  manly 
composure.  Many  thousands,  entangled  in  debt  by  the  necessity  or  the  weakness 
of  life,  and  persecuted  by  the  arms  of  the  law  with  merciless  rigor,  obtained  in 
this  sacred  interval  remission  of  their  debts  from  the  more  generous  feelings  of 
their  creditors,  who,  in  the  joy  of  having  a  Redeemer  born  to  them,  became 
themselves  the  redeemers  of  unfortunate  debtors. 

Oh,  what  a  night  was  Christmas  Eve  to  ancient  Christendom !  Oh  that  I 
could  describe  its  blessings,  and  your  hearts  would  be  moved  to  seek  God's  Holy 
Spirit,  and  your  hands  would  tremblingly  give  and  receive  human  gifts  sanctified 
by  the  solemnity  of  this  hour ;  for  you  would  remember,  that  in  this  hour  was 
born  unto  you  Christ  the  Saviour,  and  you  would  rejoice  in  him  with  a  holy  joy. 

Oh  that  Christ  Jesus  would  now  appear  to  us  in  spirit !  that  we  might  all  be 
like  unto  our  children,  to  whom  the  invisible  love  of  God  is  made  manifest  in  the 
Christ-child*  under  the  form  of  an  innocent  babe,  like  unto  them  in  appearance, 
but  descending  from  heaven  with  pleasant  gifts.  Oh  that  the  joy  of  this  hour, 
wherewith  we  rejoice  over  the  birth  of  our  Saviour,  could  enable  us  to  see  in 
spirit  the  divine  love  of  Christ  Jesus,  giving  himself  up  to  death  to  be  a  ransom 
for  us.  Let  us  rejoice  in  the  hour  in  which  he  was  made  flesh,  in  the  hour  in 
which  he  brought  into  the  world  the  great  gift  of  his  death  to  be  deposited  on  the 
altar  of  divine  love.  From  this  hour  was  he  the  Lord's  High  Priest,  the  victim 
for  our  sins. 

My  friends,  my  brethren  and  sisters !  let  us  pray :  "  Bring  back,  Oh  Lord, 
bring  back  unto  the  world  those  happy  days,  when  mankind  were  truly  rejoicing 

*  Christmas  Eve  abroad  is  the  time  when  children  receive  gifts  of  every  kind  from  their 
parents,  godfathers,  &c.  ;  but  instead  of  "  Christmas  boxes,"  they  are  "Christmas  trees,"— 
young  fir-stems,  lighted  up  with  little  wax-tapers,  on  the  twigs  of  which  all  the  glittering 
gifts  are  hung.  The  preparation  of  the  "Christmas  tree"  is  a  family  mystery,  and  if  the 
child  ask  from  whence  all  the  goodly  things  come,  the  answer  is,  "The  Christ-child  brought 
them."— B. 


IQQ  PESTALOZZI  AS  THE  FATHER  OF  A  FAMILY. 

in  their  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  and  in  the  hour  of  his  birth.  Bring  back  unto  us 
those  times,  when  at  this  hour  the  hearts  of  men  were  rilled  with  the  Holy  Ghost, 
and  their  hands  with  gifts  of  brotherly  love.  Oh  heavenly  Father,  thou  wilt 
bring  them  back  if  we  seek  for  them.  And,  as  one  of  old  asked  Jesus  Christ : 
'  Lord,  what  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?'  even  so  let  us  ask  :  '  Lord,  what  must  we 
do,  that  Christmas  Eve  may  bring  unto  us  those  blessings  which  it  brought  to 
the  Christian  world  in  its  better  days  ?  what  must  we  do  that  the  joy  of  Christmas 
may  be  an  universal  joy  to  our  house,  as  it  was  in  the  days  of  old  to  all  mankind  ?'  " 

It  is  by  answering  this  question,  my  friends  and  brethren,  that  I  will  endeavor 
to  edify  you  in  the  solemn  moments  of  this  festival,  so  sacred  to  the  Christian's 
heart. 

My  friends,  my  brethren  !  the  joy  of  Christmas  was  to  our  fathers  a  universal 
joy,  the  common  joy  of  humankind,  because  it  was  the  joy  of  holy  and  heavenly 
love.  In  like  manner  in  our  house,  the  joy  of  Christmas  will  become  a  universal 
joy  only  if  it  become  among  us  a  joy  of  holy  and  heavenly  love.  The  fellowship 
of  love  is  the  only  true  source  of  fellowship  in  rejoicing;  its  divine  power  alone 
can  break  the  bonds  by  which  joy  is  restrained  in  the  human  breast.  In  the 
absence  of  that  love,  our  joy  is  only  the  joy  of  individuals  in  single  objects,  in 
whose  excitement  selfishness  is  enthroned.  The  troop  of  the  joyful  is  separated 
from  the  multitude  of  the  mournful ;  and  the  latter  are  left  to  their  fate  without 
one  feeling  of  sympathy,  while  the  former,  full  of  envy  and  anxiety,  are  jealously 
guarding  the  sources  of  their  joy,  lest  any  of  those  that  are  rejoicing  with  them 
should  divert  its  streams  into  their  own  channels.  Such  is  the  joy  which,  fettered 
by  the  bonds  of  human  selfishness,  is  unable  to  rise  into  a  holy  and  divine  feeling. 

My  friends  and  brethren !  wherever  the  fellowship  of  love  is  wanting,  the  fel- 
lowship of  joy  is  precluded.  If,  then,  we  desire  to  make  Christmas  Eve  a  festival 
to  our  hearts,  as  it  was  to  the  hearts  of  our  fathers,  the  fellowship  of  love  must 
first  be  established  and  secured  among  us.  But  this  is  wanting  wherever  there 
is  not  the  mind  of  Jesus  Christ  and  the  power  of  his  Spirit. 

My  friends  and  brethren  !  unless  that  mind  and  that  power  be  in  the  midst  of 
us,  our  house  will  prove  to  be  built  on  sand.  In  vain  shall  we  seek  for  the  fellow- 
ship of  joy,  if  we  have  not  that  of  love. 

My  friends  and  brethren !  if  there  be  no  other  but  human  and  temporal  ties  to 
bind  us,  we  are  inwardly  divided  already,  and  our  external  union  will  and  must  be 
broken  up,  as  a  spider's  web  by  the  strong  wings  of  a  wasp,  or  by  a  gush  of  wind. 

My  friends  and  brethren  !  it  is  no  small  thing  for  men  to  be  united  for  a  holy 
purpose.  They  must  sanctify  themselves  in  their  union,  that  their  purpose  may 
remain  to  them  a  holy  purpose,  and  that  the  work  of  their  hands  also  may  be 
holy.  But  it  is  far  more  common  for  men  to  corrupt  than  to  sanctify  themselves 
by  their  union. 

My  friends  and  brethren !  let  us  not  overlook  the  dangers  of  every  union  be- 
tween man  and  man.  Wherever  men  unite  in  their  human  capacities,  their 
union  will  not  lead  to  their  purification  or  sanctification.  It  is  only  where  a  divine 
life  forms  the  tie  of  union,  that  man  by  his  union  with  other  men  can  become 
purified  and  sanctified ;  but  the  union  in  the  tie  of  a  divine  life  is  only  possible  by 
the  fellowship  of  the  mind  of  Christ  and  the  communion  of  his  Holy  Spirit. 
Whoever  has  not  the  mind  of  Christ,  nor  his  Spirit,  will  not  be  ennobled  by  any 
union  with  man.  Let  us  not  be  blind,  therefore,  my  brethren,  to  the  dangers  of 
our  union.  They  are  great,  very  great.  It  is  the  work  of  thy  mercy,  Oh  Lord, 


PESTALOZZI  AS  THE  FATHER  OF  A  FAMILY.  IQQ 

that  they  have  not  ensnared  us  already.  For  how  variously  has  in  our  union  the 
human  nature  of  the  one  attached  itself  to  the  human  nature  of  the  other !  how 
manifold  has  been  among  us  the  fellowship  of  weakness !  Have  we  not  endeav- 
ored each  of  us  to  make  the  weakness  of  others  a  cloak  wherewith  to  cover  his 
own.  Oh,  how  little  has  the  success  of  our  undertaking  effected  toward  raising 
us  to  a  higher  state,  and  strengthening  in  us  the  power  of  divine  grace !  How 
often  have  we  rejoiced  with  a  merely  human  joy,  unsanctified  by  the  divine 
Spirit,  in  that  outward  success  which  became  the  more  illusory  as  we  took  a 
merely  human  view  of  it!  Oh  Lord,  how  little  have  we  been  strengthened,  and 
how  much  have  we  been  enfeebled,  by  our  prosperity.  My  friends  and  brethren  ! 
let  us  not  conceal  this  matter  from  ourselves  ;  the  history  of  our  union  is  nothing 
else  than  the  history  of  the  merciful  dealings  of  divine  grace,  with  the  weakness 
of  men  united  together  for  a  holy  purpose.  We  have  pursued  this  purpose  after 
the  fashion  of  men,  but  the  Lord  has  blessed  our  labors  with  the  blessing  of 
heaven.  Of  that  blessing  we  have  proved  ourselves  unworthy,  for  in  the  midst 
of  his  loving  kindness  toward  us,  our  weaknesses  not  only  remained  the  same, 
but  they  were  often  increased. 

My  friends  and  brethren !  the  days  of  our  prosperity  have  not,  as  they  ought 
to  have  done,  prepared  and  strengthened  us  for  the  days  of  adversity  ;  and  yet 
adversity  must  necessarily  come  upon  us,  lest  we  should  be  subdued  by  our  human 
weaknesses,  which  are  in  open  conflict  with  the  divine  purpose  of  our  union.  My 
friends  and  brethren !  are  we  to  give  way  to  those  weaknesses  of  our  human 
nature,  and  see  our  house  stride  on  toward  dissolution ;  or  shall  we,  by  elevating 
ourselves  above  them,  save  our  work  from  destruction  ? 

My  friends  and  brethren  !  is  the  coming  Christmas  to  be  to  us  a  day  of  deep 
mourning,  or  a  joyful  day  of  triumph,  to  celebrate  our  conquests  over  ourselves 
and  our  infirmities?  The  decisive  moment  is  come.  "We  must  no  longer  rely 
upon  outward  prosperity  for  the  success  of  our  undertaking ;  for  there  is  no  pros- 
perity that  can  now  become  really  conducive  to  its  progress ;  nothing  but  right- 
eousness can  any  longer  advance  the  object  of  our  union.  You  are  left,  my 
friends,  almost  without  a  leader.  My  strength  is  gone.  I  am  no  longer  an  ex- 
ample for  you  of  what  you  ought  to  be  day  by  day,  as  members  of  our  family. 
Your  task  is  an  important  one.  You  are  to  educate  yourselves  as  well  as  the 
children  intrusted  to  our  care.  You  are  to  resist  the  world  and  its  vain  works, 
and  yet  you  are  to  satisfy  men  who  have  grown  grey-headed  in  its  vanities.  You 
are  to  pave  a  new  road  through  impervious  tracts,  and  to  walk  on  it  as  if  it  had 
been  paved  long  ago.  You  are  to  act  the  parts  of  youths  in  your  development, 
and  that  of  men  in  your  position  to  the  world. 

My  friends !  our  meeting  together  was  on  a  less  highr  it  was  on  a  human 
ground  ;  nor  has  our  temporal  connection  raised  us  to  such  an  elevation ;  and 
yet  it  is  indispensable  for  the  attainment  of  our  end,  that  we  should  rise  to  that 
point. 

Oh  my  friends,  my  brethren  !  in  what  a  sublime  light  does  this  purpose  present 
itself  to  my  view.  Oh  that  it  were  possible  for  me  to  present  it  to  you  in  the  like 
manner  as  I  did  the  Christmas  joy  of  our  forefathers.  The  purpose  of  our  union 
is  not  founded  upon  our  human  nature,  but  upon  the  divine  spark  implanted 
within  it;  it  is  on  this  account  that  it  embraces  the  whole  of  humankind;  it  is  a 
universal  purpose,  because  it  addresses  itself  to  that  divine  seed  which  God  has 
universally  deposited  in  the  hearts  of  men.  Our  means  likewise  are  not  derived 


j>70  PESTALOZZI  AS  THE  FATHER  OF  A  FAMILY. 

from  our  human  nature  ;  they  emanate  from  a  divine  life  within  us.  So  far  only 
as  we  are  alive  to  that  purpose  in  its  divine  character,  so  far  as  it  is  unfolded  in 
us  by  divine  means,  so  far  only  has  it  in  us  a  real  foundation  ;  and  it  is  so  far  only, 
that  the  attainment  of  it  can  become  to  us  a  source  of  universal  peace  and 
tranquillity. 

My  friends  and  brethren !  if  that  be  wanting  among  us,  our  union  for  the  pur- 
pose of  education  is  no  more  than  a  vain  dream ;  from  which  when  we  wake,  we 
shall  find  our  eyes  filled  with  tears. 

My  friends  and  brethren !  if  we  be  united  by  no  better  tie  than  that  which 
binds  men  together  in  the  vanity  of  their  common  pursuits,  our  union  will  share 
the  fate  of  all  vain  human  associations.  The  fetters  of  this  vain  world  will  then 
keep  our  union  in  an  unholy  bondage,  and  we  shall  sink,  as  man  always  does  in 
union  with  man,  except  he  be  raised  above  the  degrading  influence  of  merely 
human  relationship  by  sanctification  in  a  divine  bond.  Mean  selfishness  will  then 
preside  among  us,  as  it  presides  every  where  in  human  society,  and  it  will  cause 
our  union  to  perish  in  itself,  like  a  house  thrown  on  a  heap  by  an  earthquake,  in 
the  same  manner  as  it  has  ruined  before  thousands  of  human  associations.  Fix  your 
view  upon  this  prospect,  my  friends ;  do  not  turn  your  eyes  from  this  picture. 
How  should  we  feel  if  all  this  should  be  fulfilled  in  us  ?  Oh !  do  not  turn  away 
your  eyes  from  this  picture  of  truth.  If  ever  we  should  be  overcome  by  our  own 
weakness,  and  obliged  to  separate  ;  if  any  of  us  should  forsake  the  common  cause 
and  look  to  their  private  interests,  some  in  the  apparent  calmness  and  satisfaction 
of  selfishness,  and  some  in  the  selfish  sorrow  of  weakness  ;  if  we  should  part  from 
each  other  ;  if  those  that  are  strong  among  us  should  abandon  the  weak  ones  to 
their  fate ;  if  any  of  us  should  become  intoxicated  with  the  narcotic  of  vain  glory, 
or  should  endeavor  for  the  sake  of  contemptible  gain  to  obtain  for  themselves  the 
credit  due  to  all.  *****  ]\jy  friends  and  brethren !  is  it  possible  for 
you  to  place  this  picture  of  dissolution,  degradation  and  ruin  before  your  eyes,  and 
not  to  feel  a  sacred  determination  kindled  in  your  bosom,  to  do  all  in  your  power 
to  avert  the  day  of  such  a  calamity  ? 

It  is  impossible,  my  friends,  my  brethren,  that  you  can  be  indifferent  to  that 
prospect:  you  will,  I  know  you  will,  be  elevated  and  united.  Oh  !  let  us  deliver 
ourselves  and  our  cause  from  danger,  by  elevation  and  unity  of  spirit.  Can  we  do 
otherwise  ?  Could  we  have  cherished  for  years  the  idea  of  raising  the  condition 
of  the  people  by  a  better  education,  and  now  allow  it  to  sink  into  oblivion  ?  Is  it 
possible  for  us  to  forget  those  sacred  hours  in  which  our  hearts  were  filled  with 
pious  enthusiasm  at  the  recollection  of  our  great  purpose ;  those  hours  in  which, 
separated  from  the  world,  and  firmly  united  among  ourselves,  we  acknowledged  each 
other  as  devoted  instruments  of  that  purpose,  and  gave  each  other  the  solemn 
promise,  which  also  we  have  openly  declared  before  men,  that  we  would  conse- 
crate ourselves  to  the  holy  cause  for  which  we  are  called,  and  assist  each  other 
in  its  pursuit,  until  every  one  of  us  should  have  obtained  strength  and  ability  to 
pursue  it  by  himself,  independently  of  any  farther  assistance  ?  Who  that  has  for 
a  moment  felt  in  his  bosom  the  spirit  of  our  union,  could  consent  to  abandon  the 
least  among  us  that  is  truly  attached  to  our  cause,  instead  of  lending  him  a  help- 
ing hand,  and  leading  him  to  become  a  mature  instrument  for  the  common  pur- 
pose ?  Is  it  possible  to  see  our  blooming  youth,  whom  none  can  equal  in  cheer- 
fulness, in  native  wit,  in  intelligence  and  practical  acquirements,  in  physical  power 
and  agility,  whose  whole  education  is  so  evidently  superior  to  that  commonly 


PESTALOZZI  AS  THE  FATHER  OF  A  FAMILY.  IfJ 

imparted,  and  not  to  mourn  at  the  thought  that  our  union  should  ever  be  dissolved  ? 
Is  it  possible  to  view  the  improvements  produced  in  the  method  of  instruction, 
by  rendering  it  conformable  to  the  nature  of  the  human  mind,  and  to  be  indiffer- 
ent to  the  idea  that  the  experiment,  out  of  which  these  improvements  arose,  should 
be  interrupted  ?  No,  it  is  impossible.  I  know  you,  and  though  I  may  have  to 
complain  of  much  frailty  among  you,  yet  I  am  sure,  that  many  of  you  would 
rather  die,  than  suffer  the  blessed  fruits  of  our  union  to  be  arrested  in  their 
growth  by  your  failings. 

No,  no !  my  brethren  !  let  the  voice  of  union  be  raised  among  us  with  a  shout 
in  the  solemn  hour  of  this  festival :  the  voice  of  that  union  which  has  raised  us  to 
the  privilege  of  becoming  the  servants  of  our  brethren.  Let  us  be  faithful  to  that 
union,  let  us  not  depart  from  the  path  prescribed  to  us  by  the  love  of  mankind. 
Let  our  object  be  now  and  forever,  to  consecrate  ourselves  to  our  holy  calling,  and 
to  remain  faithful  to  each  other  in  cooperating  for  the  attainment  of  our  great  pur- 
pose ;  to  remain  faithful  to  the  beloved  children  who  grow  up  in  the  midst  of  us,  ill 
the  flower  of  youth  5  to  remain  faithful  to  truth  and  love  in  all  the  means  that  we 
adopt ;  and  in  the  whole  sphere  of  our  exertions  to  preserve  purity  of  heart. 

My  friends  and  brethren !  let  this  day,  consecrated  to  the  remembrance  of  a 
Saviour's  birth,  be  the  day  of  a  holy  renovation  of  our  union  !  let  it  be  the  day 
of  a  holy  renovation  of  ourselves  for  the  purposes  of  our  calling!  let  the  joy  that 
Jesus  Christ  came  in  the  flesh,  be  one  with  the  joy  that  we  are  united  in  his  ser- 
vice ;  let  our  joy  be  the  joy  of  faith  and  love  in  Him  !  Let  the  sacred,  the  divine 
character  of  our  calling,  raise  us  far  above  ourselves,  and  above  the  dangers  of 
human  weakness,  which  exist  in  our  union  as  in  the  union  of  all  our  brethren. 
Let  us  be  sincere  with  ourselves,  let  us  not  deceive  ourselves  by  the  vain  jingle 
of  words,  let  us  not  contaminate  the  holy  night  of  our  Lord  by  the  delusion  of  sel- 
fishness !  Whoever  seeks  in  our  union  to  serve  himself  only,  let  him  depart  from 
us !  Whoever  makes  our  union  a  scene  for  the  freer  indulgence  of  his  weakness, 
let  him  depart  from  us !  Whoever  feels  that  in  our  union  he  grows  more  frail 
and  faulty  than  he  would  have  allowed  himself  to  become  elsewhere,  let  him 
depart  from  us ! 

We  are  brought  together  by  chance ;  it  could  not  be  otherwise ;  but  let  not 
chance  keep  us  together  like  fishes  caught  in  a  net,  who  must  all  perish  together. 
No,  no !  the  hour  is  come  to  separate  the  wheat  from  the  chaff".  The  hour  is 
come,  when  our  union  must  cease  to  afford  food  for  the  wicked.  It  is  enough  ! 
It  is  enough  !  The  goodness  of  God  has  given  to  each  of  us  a  time  of  grace  and 
long  suffering.  For  those  who  have  abused  that  time,  it  is  now  at  an  end,  it  must 
be  at  an  end  !  Whoever  does  not  serve  the  holy  purpose  of  our  union,  whoever 
disturbs  it  by  his  presence,  let  him  depart  from  us  ! 

My  brethren  !  The  ties  of  chance  must  this  day  be  broken  !  No  other  tie  can 
henceforth  be  suffered  to  exist  among  us  than  that  of  love  and  righteousness.  Let 
us  part  rather  than  perish  !  We  must  either  part  and  follow  every  one  his  own 
appointed  way,  or  else  we  must  stand  together  this  day,  before  God  and  men, 
with  one  heart  and  one  soul !  resolved  to  follow  our  common  calling.  Such  is  our 
duty  this  day ! 

My  friends,  my  brethren !  let  us  be  faithful  to  that  calling ;  let  us  cheerfully 
run  our  race  together  !  I  am  the  weakest  among  you,  but  I  am  ready  to  bring 
any  sacrifice  that  may  be  required  of  me  for  the  attainment  of  our  holy  purpose. 

My  friends  and  brethren  !  be  you  also  ready  to  bring  those  sacrifices  which  will 


1Y2  PESTALOZZI  AS  THE  FATHER  OF  A  FAMILY. 

be  required  of  you !  They  will  not  be  small.  It  is  no  small  matter  to  put  one's 
hand  to  the  work  of  educating  mankind  5  to  stand  forward  among  men,  and  to 
say :  "  Come  to  us  and  see  the  great  thing  which  we  propose  to  do  for  improving 
the  education  of  the  human  race,  for  benefiting  the  world,  and  securing  the 
welfare  of  our  species." 

My  friends  and  brethren  !  This  is  the  view  which  has  been  taken  of  the  object 
of  our  union,  and  we  ourselves  have  represented  it  nearly  in  the  same  light. 
Feeling  the  corrupt  state  into  which  education  has  fallen,  and  suffering  under  its 
mistakes,  the  world  has  awarded  confidence  to  the  language  of  my  enthusiasm, 
and  has  crowned  us  with  laurel,  when  we  had  hardly  begun  to  search  after  the 
means  by  which  a  beautiful  dream  might  be  realized.  I  was  myself  under  a  great 
mistake.  I  thought  the  way  to  my  end  much  shorter  than  it  actually  is;  while 
the  incense  with  which  we  were  perfumed,  as  well  as  the  unexpected  success  of 
some  unripe  experiments,  confirmed  us  in  that  mistake,  and  had  a  prejudicial  in- 
fluence on  our  union  and  our  institution.  The  seeds  of  corruption  began  to 
unfold  themselves  among  us.  We  contradicted  one  another  with  our  unripe 
opinions  in  dogmatical  arrogance,  and  ills  began  to  spring  up  in  our  house,  which, 
when  the  fashion  of  praising  us  had  grown  old,  afforded  the  world  an  opportunity 
of  abusing  us,  likewise  as  a  matter  of  fashion.  Our  time  of  trial  is  come,  but  it  is 
better  for  us  than  the  hour  of  vain  praise.  Let  us  not  deceive  ourselves.  The 
voice  of  censure  is  becoming  severe  against  us,  and  times  of  trouble  are  at  hand. 
My  poor  house !  thy  lovers  are  become  thy  accusers,  and  know  thou  that  the  ac- 
cusations of  lovers  are  severe,  and  that  their  blame  will  become  a  testimony 
against  thee  in  the  mouth  of  thy  enemies.  My  poor  house  !  thou  art  grown  up 
as  a  beautiful  flower  of  the  field ;  the  gardeners  envy  thy  beauty,  because  it 
shakes  the  faith  of  the  world  in  their  hot-houses,  and  verily  they  will  take 
vengeance  upon  thee ! 

My  friends,  my  brethren  !  despise  not  this  time  of  tribulation  !  Our  gold  will 
be  purified,  and  the  heat  of  the  refiner's  fire  will  bring  the  dross  to  the  surface  ! 
The  world  will  for  awhile  see  nothing  but  dross,  and  will  lose  for  a  time  all  faith 
in  the  gold,  which  is  underneath  the  drossy  bubbles. 

My  friends,  my  brethren  !  let  not  this  offend  you,  but  rejoice  rather  that  your 
dross  shall  be  separated  from  the  gold  of  our  holy  cause.  If  the  dross  be  permit- 
ted to  swim  on  the  surface,  and  all  that  is  good  and  valuable  among  us  be  hidden 
from  the  eyes  of  the  world,  which  can  not  see  beyond  the  surface,  rejoice  ye! 
The  hour  of  purifying  will  pass  over ;  the  vain  dross  of  our  labors  will  be  thrown 
away,  and  be  lost  like  chaff  in  the  fire,  but  that  which  is  purified  will  remain. 
Think  on  this,  pass  it  not  over  lightly !  Ask  yourselves :  "  What  then  will  re- 
main !  much,  very  much,  of  what  we  consider  as  gold,  is  now  boiling  up  with  the 
dross.  But  be  ye  not  offended.  The  gold  of  our  cause  is  not  to  be  found  in  our 
outward  labors,  in  our  outward  success  ;  it  is  within  you  ;  there  you  must  seek  it, 
there  you  shall  find,  there  you  must  value  it.  Our  cause  can  have  no  value  to 
us,  except  that  which  we  possess  in  ourselves  ;  and  that  value  is  great,  it  can  not  be 
little  •,  nor  must  we  allow  ourselves  to  lose  it  in  the  unstable  estimation  formed  of 
our  external  undertaking,  like  a  diamond  in  a  heap  of  sand.  No !  the  intrinsic 
value  of  our  cause  is  great.  It  requires  an  uncommon  elevation  of  heart,  single- 
ness of  sight,  absolute  submission  to  the  guidance  of  Providence,  indefatigable 
exertion,  undaunted  courage,  constant  self-denial,  the  humility  of  love,  and  the 
strength  of  heroes. 


PESTALOZZI  AS  THE  FATHER  OF  A  FAMILY.  173 

My  friends,  my  brethren!  let  us  not  deceive  ourselves,  our  aim  is  one  which 
heroes  only  can  hope  to  reach.  Whence  shall  we  get  that  heroic  strength  of 
which  we  stand  in  need  ? 

My  brethren!  remember  that  the  strength  of  the  Lord  is  made  perfect  in 
weakness.  The  Saviour  came  into  the  world,  lying  in  a  manger,  a  helpless  in- 
fant ;  and  the  glory  of  the  only  begotten  of  the  Father  was  declared  unto  poor 
shepherds  that  kept  watch  over  their  flocks. 

May  the  holy  reminiscences  of  this  day  inspire  us  with  a  high  and  holy  courage 
for  our  work.  My  brethren !  if  we  are  able  to  celebrate  this  festival  in  the  spirit 
of  our  noble-hearted  ancestors,  in  the  spirit  of  genuine  Christians,  then  are  we 
capable  likewise  of  accomplishing  our  work.  The  Lord  Jesus  has  said :  "If  ye 
have  faith  as  a  grain  of  mustard  seed,  ye  shall  say  unto  this  mountain  :  '  Remove 
hence  to  yonder  place !'  and  it  shall  remove."  My  friends,  if  ye  have  faith  as  a 
grain  of  mustard  seed,  though  obstacles  should  lie  in  your  way  like  mountains, 
whose  feet  are  rooted  in  the  depth  of  the  earth,  and  whose  tops  reach  unto 
heaven,  ye  shall  say  to  them  :  "  Remove  hence  to  yonder  place  !"  and  they  shall 
remove.  My  friends !  if  we  celebrate  this  holy  festival  in  true  faith,  we  shall  in 
the  same  faith  accomplish  our  task.  Cast  back  your  looks  upon  the  times  of  old, 
and  see  how  this  festival  was  celebrated  by  true  faith.  His  heart  filled  with  the 
Holy  Spirit,  and  his  hand  with  gifts  of  human  kindness,  the  Christian  stood  at 
this  hour  in  the  midst  of  his  brethren.  The  solemn  hour  of  heavenly  joy  was  an 
hour  of  sauctification  to  our  species.  The  earth  was  at  this  hour  a  heavenly  earth. 
The  dwelling-place  of  mortal  man  was  filled  with  the  breath  of  immortality. 

If  we  celebrate  this  hour  in  the  spirit  of  ancient  Christendom,  in  the  spirit  of 
better  days  that  are  gone  by,  our  hearts  will  be  filled  with  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  well 
as  our  hands  with  earthly  gifts.  Thus  shall  every  one  of  us  stand  in  the  midst 
of  his  brethren,  in  the  cheerful  circle  of  our  children.  With  the  hand  of  kind- 
ness will  we  seek  their  hands,  and  their  eye  shall  find  in  ours  the  beam  of  love. 
Then  will  the  joys  of  this  day  be  to  us  heavenly  joys,  then  shall  we  be  sanctified 
in  the  rejoicing  of  this  hour.  Then,  my  friends,  my  brethren,  will  our  house  be 
a  heavenly  house,  and  the  dwelling-place  of  our  weakness  be  filled  with  the  breath 
of  immortality. 

My  friends,  my  brethren !  the  fellowship  of  our  joy  will  then  be  a  fellowship 
of  love,  and  our  house  will  no  longer  be  built  on  sand.  Selfishness  and  sensual 
appetite  will  then  no  longer  rule  over  our  pleasures,  nor  embitter  our  sufferings. 
Our  union  will  no  longer  be  disturbed,  for  heartless  indifference  will  be  banished 
from  among  us,  and  whoever  sins  against  love,  will  stand  confounded  before  the 
image  of  offended  and  weeping  love.  Then  shall  our  union  rest,  not  upon  a 
human  but  upon  a  divine  basis,  and  then  it  will  and  must  become  a  source  of 
blessing  to  all  its  members.  The  pangs  of  the  suffering,  the  sorrows  of  the 
afflicted,  and  the  burden  of  the  oppressed,  will  then  disappear.  I  may  then  adopt 
with  truth  the  language  of  internal  tranquillity,  and  say  :  "  I  cast  my  burden  upon 
thee,  Oh  Lord ;  thou  wilt  sustain  me."  My  friends,  my  brethren  !  our  cause  is 
secured,  if  the  fellowship  of  love  dwell  among  us.  Oh  heavenly  Father,  grant 
Thou  us  the  grace  of  fellowship  in  Thy  Spirit ! 

All  human  fellowship  disturbs  the  high  fellowship  of  love,  which  is  only  to  be 
found  in  a  divine  fellowship,  and  of  this  none  can  partake  but  those  who  have  the 
mind  of  Christ  Jesus,  and  follow  after  him  in  the  strength  of  his  Spirit. 

My  friends,  my  brethren !  let  this  holy  night  be  consecrated  by  earnest  prayer 


174  PESTALOZZI  AS  THE  FATHER  OF  A  FAMILY. 

to  God  for  the  mind  of  Christ  Jesus,  and  for  the  strength  of  his  Spirit,  that  our 
house  may  be  established,  and  the  work  of  our  calling  accomplished  in  the  fellow- 
ship of  love. 

And  you,  my  beloved  children,  who  celebrate  this  Christmas  in  the  simplicity 
of  your  hearts,  what  shall  I  say  to  you  ?  We  wish  to  be  partakers  of  your  sim- 
plicity, of  your  child-like  joy.  We  know,  that  except  we  be  converted  and  be- 
come as  little  children,  except  we  be  elevated  to  the  simplicity  of  a  child-like 
mind,  we  shall  not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  we  shall  not  attain  the  fel- 
lowship of  love,  by  which  alone  our  house  can  be  established  on  a  sure  foundation. 
Beloved  children  !  it  is  for  your  sakes  that  we  are  united  in  one  family  5  our  house 
is  your  house,  and  for  your  sakes  only  is  it  our  house.  Live  in  our  family  in  the 
simplicity  of  love,  and  trust  in  our  faithfulness  and  our  paternal  affection  toward 
you.  Be  ye  children,  be  ye  innocent  children  in  the  full  sense  of  the  word.  Let 
this  festival  establish  you  in  the  holy  strength  of  a  child-like  mind.  Behold 
Christ  Jesus,  the  Saviour  of  the  world ;  behold  him  with  the  graces  of  holy 
childhood  at  the  bosom  of  his  mother;  behold  him  in  the  manger  with  the  sweet 
look  of  holy  innocence.  Remember  him,  how  he  grew,  and  waxed  strong  in 
spirit,  filled  with  wisdom,  and  how  the  grace  of  God  was  upon  him  ;  how  he  was 
subject  unto  his  parents;  how  in  fear  and  love  toward  them  he  increased  in  wis- 
dom and  stature,  and  in  favor  with  God  and  man ;  how,  being  yet  a  child,  he  sat 
in  the  temple  in  the  midst  of  the  wise  men,  and  astonished  all  that  heard  him  by 
his  understanding  and  answers  ;  how  grace  and  love  never  departed  from  him  all 
his  days ;  how  he  drew  the  souis  of  men  toward  him  by  the  excellency  of  his 
life ;  how  he  took  unto  him  little  children,  and  declared  their  sweetness  and  sim- 
plicity to  be  the  source  of  life  everlasting  in  and  with  God ;  how  his  grace  and 
love  was  made  manifest  in  his  sufferings  and  death,  as  the  power  of  God  to  the 
salvation  of  mankind  ;  how  it  forsook  him  not  even  in  the  last  hour,  that  in  the 
midst  of  its  torments  his  lips  instilled  consolation  into  the  soul  of  his  mother.  Oh, 
my  children,  may  this  solemn  hour  inspire  you  with  that  spirit  of  grace  and  love 
that  was  in  Him,  and  may  you  be  preserved  in  it  all  the  days  of  your  lives !  We 
too,  my  children,  stand  in  need  of  your  grace  and  love,  to  nourish  and  to 
strengthen  these  paternal  feelings,  which  we  pray  God  that  he  may  grant  unto 
us,  and  without  which  we  can  not  render  you  any  service  of  love  and  righteousness 

Children,  let  the  graces  of  childhood  elevate  our  souls,  and  purify  us  of  all  con- 
tamination of  anger  and  wrath,  and  hastiness  in  your  education.  May  your  love 
animate  our  hearts  and  refresh  our  spirits,  that  we  may  not  grow  weary  in  the 
duties  of  our  office. 

Children,  I  must  conclude  :  I  will  again  speak  to  you  in  a  little  while.  For  the 
present  let  it  suffice.  Children,  young  men,  men,  friends  and  brethren,  let  our 
Christmas  be  unto  us  a  day  of  holiness !  May  God  in  heaven  sanctify  it  unto  us  ! 
Glory  be  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth  peace,  and  meekness  of  heart  among 
the  children  of  men  !  Amen ! 


PESTALOZZI.-NEW   YEAR'S   ADDRESS,   1809. 


*  *  *  I  BOW  down  my  face,  fall  down,  and  ask  myself,  Am  I  worthy 
of  the  benefactions  of  my  Father  ?  Am  I  worthy  of  that  salvation  of  my 
work,  and  of  all  the  value  which  God  has  given,  during  the  past  year,  to 
me,  and  to  my  house  1  O  God  !  dare  I  even  ask  it  ?  Is  man  ever  worthy  of 
God's  benefits  ?  and  dare  I,  for  a  moment,  imagine  myself  worthy  of  the  wonder- 
ful manner  in  which  the  paternal  goodness  of  God  has  carried  our  existence, 
with  all  its  weaknesses,  through  the  dangers  of  the  past  year  ?  The  year  was  an 
important  one  for  us.  We  saw  what  our  work  requires  more  clearly  than  ever 
before ;  we  saw  its  power,  and  felt  our  own  weakness,  more  clearly  than  ever. 
The  force  of  circumstances  had  nearly  swallowed  up  our  existence.  The  means 
we  used,  to  extricate  ourselves  from  perils  beyond  our  strength,  increased  the 
evil.  Let  an  everlasting  veil  fall  over  the  human  part  of  our  labors.  Let  the 
first  festive  hours  of  this  day  be  devoted  to  the  gratitude  which  we  owe  to  tha 
Saviour  of  our  work,  the  Father  of  our  life,  the  everlasting  source  of  all  that  is 
holy  or  good  within  our  association.  I  will  thank  him.  I  will  look  within  my- 
self, and  acknowledge  how  little  I  was  worthy  of  his  goodness ;  how  little  I  was 
worthy  that  he  should  thus  rescue  the  labor  of  my  life.  O  thou  good  God,  how 
much  did  it  require,  even  to  undertake  that  work !  Father  in  Heaven,  what  an 
expanse  of  duty  did  even  the  dream  of  my  work  lay  before  me !  I  myself  dare 
scarcely  think  of  the  accomplishment  of  all  those  duties.  Fear  and  shame  must 
seize  hold  upon  me,  when  I  reflect  what  is  officially  required  of  me  by  the  relig- 
ious and  human  duties,  and  the  extent,  of  my  house.  What  have  I  done,  in 
taking  such  extensive  burdens  on  my  shoulders  ?  Near  the  grave,  feeling  more 
than  ever  the  need  of  rest,  too  weak  for  ordinary  duties,  uneasy  at  almost  every 
occurrence,  unforeseeing  its  almost  every  danger,  inconsiderate  in  almost  every 
conclusion,  unskillful,  helpless,  and  unpractical  in  almost  every  thing  which  I  begin 
and  ought  to  finish.  I  see  myself  placed  in  relations  to  you,  which  demand  the 
utmost  calmness,  the  greatest  foresight,  the  deepest  deliberation,  and  the  utmost 
skill  and  practical  dexterity,  that  any  one  human  task  ever  required.  I  have  had 
nothing  to  oppose  to  all  these  defects  of  mine,  except  my  love,  and  my  presenti- 
ment of  the  possibility  of  good  results ;  which  have  never  left  me.  But  this  pre- 
sentiment, and  this  love,  were  not  re-enforced  for  my  work,  either  by  correspond- 
ing inner  powers  nor  corresponding  outward  means.  Thus  stood  my  enterprise 
for  years.  Yet  it  was  not  my  enterprise  :  I  did  not  seek  what  I  found  ;  I  did  not 
know  the  ocean  in  which  I  was  to  swim,  when  I  threw  myself  into  the  stream 
which  has  borne  me  into  it.  What  I  do,  is  not  my  work  ;  I  did  not  begin  what  I 
now  see  completed  here  ;  nor  am  I  completing  what  I  began.  I  stand  here,  sur- 
rounded by  benefits  from  my  fate,  which  fate  yet  controls;  by  benefits  from  God, 
which  he  yet  controls ;  by  friends,  whom  God  himself  has  given  to  me,  and 
whom  he  yet  controls.  My  work  exists,  my  friends,  through  you,  who  are  around 
me;  my  work  exists  through  you.  I  have  ever  the  least  share  in  it.  My  pow- 
ers of  sharing  it,  how  small  soever,  are  continually  becoming  smaller.  What  has 


176  PESTALOZZI.— NEW  FEAR'S  ADDRESS. 

come  to  pass,  has  come  to  pass  through  you  ;  and  what  is  to  come  to  pass,  must 
happen  through  you.  God's  providence  will  never  leave  me  to  lose  you,  and  to 
be  obliged  to  seek  out  new  supports  for  my  work.  I  could  thank  you — but  what 
words  could  render  thanks  for  what  you  are  to  me,  and  to  my  work  ?  Sorrow 
takes  hold  upon  me.  How  little  am  I  to  you,  in  comparison  with  what  you  are 
to  me !  I  look  within  myself,  and  acknowledge  how  much  I  have  been  wanting 
to  my  work  •,  how  my  weaknesses  have  almost  hindered  my  work  more  than  they 
have  advanced  it.  ... 

.  .  .  Deeply  beloved  children ;  you  too  should,  in  this  festive  hour,  raise 
your  hearts  to  your  Father  in  heaven,  and  promise  him  to  be  his  children ;  with 
thanks  and  devotion,  to  be  his  children.  Children,  your  good  fortune  is  great. 
At  a  time  when  the  great  majority  of  children  go  on  in  neglect  and  abandon- 
ment, with  only  want  for  their  teacher,  and  their  passions  for  their  guides  5  in 
days  when  so  many,  so  innumerably  many,  better  and  more  fortunate  children, 
suffering  under  a  combination  of  harshness,  violence,  and  bad  guidance,  diverted 
from  the  paths  of  nature,  not  educated,  but  trained  only  into  a  one-sided,  empty 
show  of  knowledge,  and  an  equally  one-sided  pretense  and  fashion  of  practical 
efficiency,  and  thus  offered  up  to  the  world ;  in  such  a  time,  you  are  not  given 
over  to  abandonment  and  neglect :  want  is  in  no  respect  your  bad  counselor  ;  nor 
are  the  dubious  impulses  of  passion  used  in  your  training.  Amongst  us,  neither 
vanity  nor  fear,  neither  honor  nor  shame,  neither  reward  nor  punishment,  as  they 
are  elsewhere  almost  universally  used,  purposely  and  as  part  of  the  method,  are 
used  to  show  you  the  path  in  which  you  are  to  go.  The  divine  nature,  which  is 
in  you,  is  counted  holy  in  you.  You  are,  among  us,  what  the  divine  nature 
within  you  and  without  you  summon  you  to  be.  We  oppose  no  vile  force  against 
your  gifts  or  your  tendencies ;  we  constrain  them  not — we  only  develop  them. 
We  do  not  instil  into  you  what  is  ours,  what  exists  in  us  as  corrupted  by  ourselves  ; 
we  develop  in  you  what  remains  uncorrupted  within  yourselves.  Among  us,  you 
are  not  under  the  misfortune  of  seeing  your  whole  being,  your  whole  humanity, 
subordinated,  and  thus  sacrificed  to  the  training  of  some  single  power,  some  sin- 
gle view  of  your  nature.  It  is  far  from  us  to  make  you  such  men  as  we  are.  It 
is  far  from  us  to  make  you  such  men  as  the  majority  of  the  men  of  the  time  are. 
Under  our  hands,  you  will  become  such  men  as  your  natures  require;  as  the 
holy,  the  divine,  within  your  natures,  require.  Father  in  heaven,  grant  to  us 
that  the  purpose  of  our  labors  may  be  visibly  and  undeniably  in  thee,  and  through 
thee.  Men  around  us  assert  that  we  propose,  as  the  ultimate  end  of  our  labors, 
not  thine  understanding,  thy  wisdom  ;  but  thy  humanity.  No,  no  !  It  is  far  from 
me  to  resign  myself  to  the  cunning  and  art  of  my  race,  confined  to  the  limits 
within  which  those  faculties  do  their  work.  It  is  far  from  me  to  seek,  as  the  end 
of  my  labor,  a  confined  development  of  the  lower  endowments  of  men,  and  of 
their  material  senses.  O  God,  no !  What  I  seek  is,  to  elevate  human  nature  to 
its  highest,  its  noblest  5  and  this  I  seek  to  do  by  love  Only  in  the  holy  power 
of  love  do  I  recognize  the  basis  of  the  development  of  my  race  to  whatever  of 
the  divine  and  eternal  lies  within  its  nature.  All  the  capacities  for  intellect,  and 
art,  and  knowledge,  which  are  within  my  nature,  I  hold  to  be  only  means  for  the 
divine  elevation  of  the  heart  to  love.  It  is  only  in  the  elevation  of  man  that  I  rec- 
ognize the  possibility  of  the  development  of  the  race  itself  to  manhood.  Love  is 
the  only,  the  eternal  foundation  of  the  training  of  our  race  to  humanity.  The 
error  was  great,  the  deception  immeasurable,  of  believing  that  I  sought  the  com- 
plete development  of  human  nature  by  a  one-sided  cultivation  of  the  intellect ;  by 


PESTALOZZI.— NEW  YEAR'S  ADDRESS.  177 

the  exclusive  study  of  arithmetic  and  mathematics.  No.  I  seek  it  through  the 
universality  of  love.  No,  no.  I  seek  not  training  to  mathematics,  I  seek  train- 
ing to  humanity ;  and  this  comes  only  through  love.  Let  your  lives,  your  whole 
lives,  my  children,  show  that  the  whole  purpose  of  my  instruction  was  only  love, 
and  elevation  to  humanity  through  love.  They  will  show  it.  The  error  of  be- 
lieving that  I  sought  any  other  end,  of  believing  that  my  method  was  intended 
only  to  obtain  for  the  poor  better  means  of  earning  bread,  will  disappear.  Deeply 
beloved  children,  you  will  cause  it  to  disappear.  This  error  has  arisen,  not  from 
me,  not  from  my  labors,  not  from  my  instructions  to  you ;  but  only  from  hasty 
glances  at  my  books,  the  special  means  of  developing  single  faculties. 

Tour  existence  is  a  contradiction  of  this  opinion,  which  gladdens  my  heart. 
Since  your  examination,  I  have  seen  you  only  for  a  moment  yesterday,  I  have 
spoken  with  you  but  little  ;  but  my  heart  is  full  of  affection  for  you.  How  little 
were  those  miserable  mechanical  accomplishments,  which  we  dealt  with,  filling 
your  minds !  Freedom,  courage,  elevating  strife  after  the  lofty,  the  noble  ;  these 
were  upon  your  brows,  in  your  eyes,  in  your  glances,  in  your  whole  being.  The 
bliss  of  love  beamed  from  many  eyes.  Peace  was  upon  your  lips.  You 
were  far  more  yourselves,  and  for  the  sake  of  God,  than  you  were  created  by  us. 
The  talents  which  you  possess  appear  in  their  own  form,  as  you  possess  them, 
and  not  at  all  as  we  have  given  them  to  you.  It  is  true  that,  among  us,  the  bonds 
of  the  folly,  the  self-seeking,  and  the  misery  of  our  day,  are  loosed.  With  us,  a 
man  may  be  poor.  "With  us,  any  one  may  be  destitute  of  all  those  means  toward 
artistic  training  which  are  attainable  by  wealth  and  by  favor,  and  may  yet  claim 
all  the  elevation  of  mind*  and  of  heart  for  which  human  nature  is  created. 
Among  us,  the  saying  is  not  heard,  that  he  who  is  born  to  eat  hay  may  eat  hay. 
We  know  no  class  of  men  born  only  to  live  like  beasts.  We  believe  that  the 
lofty  endowments  of  human  nature  are  found  in  all  ranks  and  conditions  of  men. 
"We  believe  that  as  every  man,  who  does  righteously,  is  acceptable  before  God  his 
creator,  so  that  every  man,  to  whom  God  himself  has  given  lofty  powers  of  mind 
and  of  heart,  is  entitled  to  assistance,  before  the  eyes  of  men,  and  in  the  midst  of 
them,  in  the  development  of  the  powers  which  God  has  given  him.  Therefore  is 
it  that  we  simplify  the  means  of  that  development ;  and  therefore  that  we  found 
upon  the  holy  power  of  love.  Children,  that  this  love  may  increase,  and  be  as- 
sured within  you,  is  all  that  we  propose  for  our  object.  Instruction,  as  such,  and 
of  itself,  does  not  produce  love,  any  more  than  it  produces  hate.  Therefore  it  is 
that  it  is  not  the  essence  of  education.  Love  is  its  essence. 

27 


PESTALOZZI.-ADDRESS  ON  HIS  SEVENTY-THIRD  BIRTHDAY. 


UPON  closer  investigation  of  all  these  practical  means  of  elevating  the  poor, 
we  shall  not  be  able  to  conceal  from  ourselves  the  fact  that  they  all  alike  lack  the 
firm  certainty  arising  from  the  inmost  pure  spirit  of  all  true  and  profoundly  thor- 
ough human  education,  namely,  the  divinely-given  instinct  of  father  and  mother-, 
the  divinely-given  impulse  of  childlike  instincts ;  the  everlasting  purity  of  broth- 
erly and  sisterly  affection,  which  never  passes  beyond  the  narrow  circle  of  the 
domestic  relations.  They  all  lack  the  certainty  and  continuity  which  comes  from 
the  connection  of  material  stimuli  to  faith  and  love  with  similarly  powerful  stimuli 
to  intellectual  and  physical  activity,  which  appeal  to  the  whole  of  human  nature 
in  freedom  and  by  conviction.  They  all  lack  the  lofty,  holy  influence  of  home. 
Their  external  scale  of  magnitude,  on  one  hand,  deprives  them  all  of  the  genial 
intimateness  of  domestic  life,  which  can  only  exist  within  a  narrow  circle  of  little 
close  relations ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  their  organization  always  rather  makes 
forcible  impressions  by  public  or  at  least  by  external  force,  than  exerts  the  blessed 
influence  of  domestic  piety ;  and  who  can  conceal  from  himself  how  unfatherly 
and  unmotherly  are  the  human  beings  often  sent  forth  by  such  institutions,  owing 
to  their  circumstances,  and  especially  to  all  sorts  of  influences  and  interests  from 
directors,  managers,  stewards,  &c.  ?  Who  can  estimate  the  difficulties  which 
must  arise  from  this  source,  in  such  institutions,  in  the  way  of  the  inner,  holy  es- 
sence of  true  human  education  ?  Such  institutions,  however,  owing  to  the  pres- 
ent condition  of  non-education,  and  of  the  corresponding  moral,  mental,  and  do- 
mestic debasement  from  overrefinement,  are  at  present  an  urgent  necessity.  May 
God  grant  that  the  heart  of  those  of  the  present  day  may  be  interested  in  the 
object,  and  take  pity  even  according  to  the  prevailing  contracted  views  on  the 
want  and  degradation  of  the  poor,  in  all  that  concerns  both  soul  and  body — but 
that,  at  the  same  time,  it  will  not  be  forgotten  that  good  institutions  for  the  relief 
of  sufferers  by  fire  and  water  are  not  good  institutions  for  the  education  of  the 
poor.  Provident  regulations  for  the  prevention  of  losses  by  fire  and  water  may, 
after  a  fashion,  be  classed  under  the  head  of  institutions  for  educating  the  poor ; 
but  institutions  for  relieving  actual  losses  by  them  can  not. 

The  only  sure  foundation  upon  which  we  must  build,  for  institutions  for  popular 
education,  national  culture,  and  elevating  the  poor,  is  the  parental  heart;  which, 
by  means  of  the  innocence,  truth,  power,  and  purity  of  its  love,  kindles  in  the 
children  the  belief  in  love ;  by  means  of  which  all  the  bodily  and  mental  powers 
of  the  children  are  united  to  obedience  in  love,  and  to  diligence  in  obedience.  It 
is  only  in  the  holiness  of  home  that  the  equal  development  of  all  the  human  fac- 
ulties can  be  directed,  managed,  and  assured  ;  and  it  is  from  this  point  that  edu- 
cational efforts  must  be  conducted,  if  education,  as  a  national  affair,  is  to  have  real 
reference  to  the  wants  of  the  people,  and  is  to  cause,  by  its  influence,  the  coincid- 
ing of  external  human  knowledge,  power,  and  motives  with  the  internal,  everlast- 
ing, divine  essence  of  our  nature. 


PESTALOZZI.— ADDRESS  ON  HIS  SEVENTY-THIRD  BIRTHDAY.        Jfg 

If  the  saying  is  true,  "It  is  easy  to  add  to  what  is  already  discovered,"  it  is  in- 
finitely more  true  that  it  is  easy  to  add  to  the  inward  eternal  goodness  of  human 
nature,  whatever  external  goodness  human  skill  ean  communicate  to  our  race ; 
but  to  reverse  this  process,  to  endeavor  to  develop  that  eternal  inward  goodness 
of  human  nature,  out  of  our  mere  miserable  human  art,  deprived  of  its  divine 
foundation  ;  this  is  the  cause  of  the  deepest  error  of  the  wretched  debasement  of 
the  present  time.  The  homes  of  the  people — I  do  not  say  of  the  mob,  for  the 
mob  have  no  homes — the  homes  of  the  people  are  the  centers  where  unites  all 
that  is  divine  in  those  powers  of  human  nature  which  admit  of  education.  .  .  . 

The  greatest  evil  of  our  time,  and  the  greatest  and  almost  insurmountable  obstacle 
to  the  operation  of  any  thorough  means  is  this,  that  the  fathers  and  mothers  of  our 
times  have  almost  universally  lost  the  consciousness  that  they  can  do  any  thing — 
every  thing — for  the  education  of  their  children.  This  great  falling  away  from 
their  faith,  of  fathers  and  mothers,  is  the  universal  source  of  the  superficial  char- 
acter of  our  means  of  education. 

In  order  to  improve  the  education  of  the  people  as  a  national  interest,  and  uni- 
versally, it  is,  above  all,  necessary  that  parents  should  be  awakened  again  to  con- 
sciousness that  they  can  do  something — much — every  thing — for  the  education  of 
their  children.  Fathers  and  mothers  must,  above  all,  learn  to  feel  vividly  how 
great  an  advantage — as  intrusted  by  God  and  their  own  conscience  with  the  duty 
of  educating  their  own  children — they  enjoy,  over  any  others  to  be  employed  as 
assistants  therein.  And,  for  like  reasons,  it  is  indispensable  that  there  should  be 
a  general  public  recognition  of  the  fact  that  a  child  who  has  lost  father  and  mother 
is  still  a  poor,  unfortunate  orphan,  even  though  his  guardian  can  employ  the  first 
among  all  the  masters  of  education  in  the  world  to  teach  him.  .  .  . 

.  .  .  Truth  is  every  where  and  nowhere ;  and  only  he  lives  in  the  truth 
who  sees  it  every  where,  as  a  phenomenon  bound  up  with  a  thousand  others,  and 
nowhere,  as  an  exacting,  isolated  idol  before  him.  But  the  visionary  weakness  of 
man  easily  leads  him  to  carve  a  graven  image  out  of  every  great  idea  which  he 
takes  to  his  bosom,  and  to  recognize  and  admit  all  truth,  all  the  rights  of  men, 
only  with  a  one-sided  reference  to  this  idol,  and  to  whatever  may  serve  its  selfish 
requirements.  Even  great  men,  and  deep  thinkers,  are  not  secure  from  the  dan- 
ger of  seeing  isolated  opinions  become  almost  a  sort  of  monomania  ;  not  indeed 
as  absolutely  as  those,  the  terror  of  mankind,  which  are  heard  from  hopeless  bed- 
lamites 5  yet  it  is  undeniable  that  favorite  conceptions  pushed  too  far,  and  views 
which  become  daily  familiar,  are  liable,  even  in  deep  thinkers,  to  acquire  such  a 
sort  of  hardness  that  it  easily  becomes  impossible  to  treat  them  as  they  are,  moral 
and  intellectual,  without  prejudice,  and  freely,  but  the  thinker  becomes  a  servant 
to  his  idea.  The  world  is  full  of  men  thus  prejudiced  for  some  particular  views. 
Are  there  not  hundreds  in  every  profession — military,  civil,  judicial,  or  any  other, 
distinguished  each  in  his  department — who  are  holden  by  their  opinions  relative 
to  their  favorite  pursuit,  in  a  manner  at  least  very  similar  to  those  possessed  by  a 
monomania  ?  I  must  proceed  still  further.  I  must  ask  myself  whether  there  are 
not,  amongst  us,  many  traces  of  this  hardening  into  views  of  some  great  idea  ?  I 
must  ask,  distinctly,  have  not  incompatible  ideas  become  equally  fixed,  in  this  way, 
in  our  heads  ?  This  I  believe  so  truly  to  be  the  case,  that  I  am  completely  con- 
vinced that  we  can  in  no  way  arrive  at  a  universal  internal  union  of  the  hour,  and 
at  an  actual  harmony  of  views  relative  to  what  we  call  our  method,  except  by  ef- 
forts to  put  upon  an  equality  within  us  all  views  relative  to  that  method — whether 
mathematical,  theological-philosophical,  natural-philosophical,  humanist,  philan- 


180 


PESTALOZZI.-ADDRESS  ON  HIS  SEVENTY-THIRD  BIRTHDAY. 


thropist,  or  whatever — and  by  not  permitting  ourselves  to  be  governed  by  any 
idea  which  is  in  progress  of  becoming  fixed,  as  I  have  described.  If  we  can  lift 
ourselves  to  this  point,  the  stand  to  which  our  efforts  have  come,  by  means  of  the 
determination  of  some  of  us  to  conform  ourselves  in  certain  views,  would,  by 
means  of  the  increased  power  of  each  of  us  within  his  department,  become  really 
valuable  for  the  whole  of  our  enterprise  ;  and  I  am  certain  that,  in  that  case,  none 
of  us  would  intrude  himself  beyond  the  circle  in  which  he  can  work  most  profit- 
ably for  the  promotion  of  our  designs.  In  that  case,  I  myself  should  not  be  en- 
tirely without  that  circle.  On  the  contrary,  I  am  sure  that  the  sentence  of  death, 
of  moral  and  intellectual  failure,  would  no  longer  be  passed  upon  me  with  so  much 
zeal  and  pleasure  as  has  been  the  case  for  years  immediately  around  me.  Many 
would  then  be  convinced  that  I  am  alive.  The  misunderstandings  which  are  and 
must  be  every  moment  crowding  about  me,  as  things  are,  are  innumerable.  But 
if  they  are  for  ever  and  ever  to  be  taken  as  true  against  me,  because  they  last 
long  and  are  accompanied  with  the  influence  of  men  very  active  hereabouts,  what 
must  I  think  of  such  a  fate  ?  What  I  do  think  is  this :  that  courts  which  con- 
demn the  accused  on  such  evidence  will  be  abhorred  by  the  whole  unprejudiced 
world.  And  for  the  future  I  have  no  fears  on  this  account.  I  am  not  ungrateful, 
and  never  shall  be  known  as  such.  .  .  .  Friends,  brothers !  coldnesses  have 
crept  in  among  us,  which  are  the  result  of  the  whole  extent  of  the  history  of  our 
association  and  of  that  outwardly  chaotic  condition,  which  has  overpowered  the 
goodness  and  nobility  which  lay  and  still  lies  at  the  bottom  of  our  association,  and 
have  brought  it  to  pass  that,  here  and  there  among  us,  one  looks  at  another  through 
spectacles  whose  glasses  are  no  longer  clear,  and  can  be  clear  no  more.  Broth- 
ers !  the  evils  of  our  house  are  not  of  to-day,  nor  of  yesterday.  They  came  from 
afar.  From  the  beginning  of  our  union,  we  have  admitted  among  us  habits  and 
ways  of  living  which  must  necessarily,  by  their  very  nature,  produce  disagree- 
ments; and  it  is  absolutely  necessary  that,  in  order  to  judge  of  these,  we  should 
look  carefully  back  to  the  days  of  the  beginning  of  our  association.  It  was  in 
truth  then  that  the  origin  of  the  evils,  under  which  we  have  lain  so  long,  sprouted 
and  took  root.  What  is  passed  is  no  longer  here  ;  but,  even  though  we  forget  it, 
its  influence  is  no  less  upon  the  present.  Friends,  brothers !  the  hours  when  we 
united  ourselves  in  the  beginning,  were  hours  of  perfect  dreaming;  and  of  groat 
error  in  that  dreaming.  In  those  days  the  world  seemed  to  seek  what  we  sought, 
and  to  love  what  we  loved.  The  delusion  of  the  time  fell  in  with  our  efforts ;  the 
interests  of  the  public  authorities  seemed  at  that  time  to  have  become  the  same 
with  our  own ;  even  the  selfishness  of  thousands,  now  in  opposition  to  us,  seemed 
then  to  coincide  with  our  views.  What  we  did  was  thought  excellent  before  it 
was  understood  ;  even  before  we  ourselves  understood  it.  Honors  and  praises 
carried  us  almost  beyond  ourselves.  The  pecuniary  prosperity  of  our  undertaking 
seemed  to  us  to  be  secured,  almost  without  effort  and  without  care.  But  the  vis- 
ion of  this  paradise  in  the  air  soon  passed  by.  The  thorns  and  thistles  of  the 
world  soon  began  to  grow  up  around  us,  as  they  do  round  the  lives  and  doings  of 
all  men.  But  the  dreams  of  those  days  profited  us  nothing.  They  weakened  our 
powers,  when  they  so  variously  and  so  urgently  needed  strengthening.  Truly, 
the  climate  of  those  days  was  too  pleasant  for  us.  We  prepared  ourselves  for  liv- 
ing in  the  warm  South,  when  the  hard,  cold  days  of  the  North  were  awaiting  us. 
Why  should  we  conceal  from  ourselves  the  truth  ?  The  vigor  and  purity  of  our 
ardor  for  our  object  grew  weak  in  those  days,  and  became,  in  some  cases,  only  a 
pretense  while  good  fortune  lasted,  not  knowing  the  power  of  that  zeal  which  iu 


PESTALOZZI.— ADDRESS  ON  HIS  SEVENTY-THIRD  BIRTHDAY.        IQ\ 

misfortune  still  burns,  and  is  not  extinguished  even  in  days  of  the  greatest  trouble. 
I  mys  'If  see  in  those  days  the  origin  of  the  evils  which  oppress  us  now ;  and  con- 
sider incorrect  all  opinions  respecting  our  later  condition,  which  do  not  have  refer- 
ence to  these  earlier  sources  of  them.  It  is  always  necessary,  in  judging  of  any 
particular  situation  or  occurrence  among  us,  to  have  reference  to  the  character  of 
the  bond  which  united  us  to  each  other ;  whose  peculiar  quality  was  this,  that  no 
one  of  us  was,  by  virtue  of  that  bond,  any  other  than  what  the  peculiarities  of  his 
own  personal,  individual  nature  made  him.  Consider  the  importance  of  this 
point;  that  among  us  nature  did  every  thing,  art  nothing.  In  reference  to  the 
persons  of  the  adult  members  of  our  house,  we  lived  without  government,  and 
without  obedience.  No  more  free  development  of  our  individuality  can  be  imag- 
ined ;  nor  any  condition  more  dangerous  and  oppressive  to  my  home  and  my 
place.  Friends!  in  your  judgments  upon  my  condition  and  my  conduct,  consider 
this,  and  reflect,  further,  upon  the  great  concourse  of  persons  who  became  mem- 
bers of  the  establishment,  without  knowing  what  we  sought,  without  desiring  what 
we  had,  without  the  abilities  which  we  needed  ;  and  who  thus  were,  in  reference 
to  myself,  presuming,  and  unrestrained  in  their  conduct,  just  in  proportion  as  I 
was  under  constraint  with  reference  to  them.  Friends !  consider  the  establish- 
ment in  the  extent  of  all  its  relations :  all  the  necessities  into  which  I  fell,  all  the 
burdens  which  came  upon  me  5  and  compare  them  with  my  destitution  of  all 
those  means  and  powers  which  were  required  to  meet,  even  in  a  distant  degree, 
the  external  and  internal  requirements  of  our  association.  Friends !  our  inno- 
cence at  the  beginning  of  our  association  was  praiseworthy,  and  the  aims  of  that 
innocence  were  praiseworthy.  But  did  innocence  ever  overcome  the  power  of 
the  many  ?  And  is  it  not  a  mere  natural  necessity  that  it  should  yield  to  that 
power  ?  Or  did  it  ever  perfect  an  enterprise  which  ventured  to  throw  itself,  with 
all  its  outward  weaknesses,  into  the  power  of  the  world  and  the  current  of  it, 
without  a  strong  steersman,  as  our  enterprise  did  ?  Truly,  we,  in  the  dreams  of 
our  first  innocence,  sought  for  such  a  life  as  ancient  piety  dreamed  of  in  a  cloister ; 
and  at  the  same  time  we  lived  in  the  utmost  imaginable  freedom.  The  youngest 
of  our  inmates  soon  almost  universally  practiced  a  freedom  of  speech  which  the 
world  permits  to  no  novices  ;  and  of  the  elder  ones,  none  thought  of  any  privi- 
leges of  a  father-prior.  And  I  represented  the  abbot  of  the  monastery ;  when, 
in  some  respects,  I  was  much  more  fit  for  the  donkey  of  the  monastery,  or  at  least 
the  sheep,  than  the  abbot.  Friends !  I  speak  plainly  on  this  point.  All  this 
is  well  understood ;  and  does  not  at  all  derogate  from  the  real  good  which  has 
been  planted,  has  taken  root,  and  still  exists  among  us,  and  which  is  so  perfectly 
well  known  by  its  results  on  so  many  of  our  pupils,  and  by  the  conduct  and  the 
success  of  so  many  adult  men  who  have  been  trained  among  us.  But  it  is  now 
time,  and  also  a  duty,  to  turn  our  attention,  with  truth,  freedom,  and  earnestness, 
to  a  subject  important  in  itself,  and  which  on  various  accounts  has  attracted  the 
attention  of  the  world.  We  must  endure  the  responsibilities  of  our  places  ;  and 
it  would  be  well  if  a  deeper  consciousness  of  this  obligation  prevailed  among  us. 
From  this  responsibility  we  can  not  escape.  All  that  is  noble  and  pure — even 
that  which  is  noblest  and  purest  in  the  world — if  it  increases  and  grows  great 
rapidly,  must  then  decrease  and  deteriorate ;  and  we  grew  much  too  fast,  in  our 
efforts  after  our  good  object,  to  know  and  practice  sufficiently  the  rules  which 
would  have  maintained  and  strengthened  the  growth  of  what  was  good  amongst 
us.  The  greater  number  of  those  who  called  themselves  ours,  came  to  us  rather 
by  chance  than  by  election  or  our  choice  ;  and  however  the  temporary  appear- 


132        PESTALOZZI.-ADDRESS  ON  HIS  SEVENTY-THIRD  BIRTHDAY. 

ance  of  many  things  amongst  us  might  have  been  understood  by  a  practiced  eye 
to  indicate  only  their  ephemeral  nature,  most  of  them  thought  my  imprudence  and 
weakness  perennial.  This  could  of  course  not  do  otherwise  than  to  originate  al- 
most incurable  evils  amongst  us.  Even  the  best  enterprise,  if  it  increases  too 
rapidly,  becomes  degraded  by  the  evil  qualities  of  the  mass  which  accretes  to  it ; 
then  seizes,  with  the  vigorous  radical  power  of  evil,  upon  the  usually  weak  roots 
of  what  is  good  5  and  then  becomes,  even  while  intermingled  with  the  overpowered 
goodness  yet  remaining,  a  recruiting-station  for  evil,  which  gathers  in  every  incau- 
tious passer-by ;  and  experience  shows  that  men  once  enlisted  on  the  side  of  evil 
soon  become  sworn  conspirators  for  it,  and,  although  feeble  in  the  ordinary  opera- 
tions of  life,  show  great  power  and  much  bad  cunning  in  promoting  their  evil 
objects,  whether  idleness,  disorder,  impudence,  or  whatever  they  may  be — or  at 
least  in  obstructing  the  dominion  of  their  opposites.  When  things  come  to  this 
pass,  whether  in  a  small  or  large  association  of  men,  the  necessity  of  some  govern- 
ing authority,  competent  to  control  such  a  state  of  affairs,  becomes  fully  recog- 
nized ;  and,  at  however  late  a  period,  aid  from  such  authority  is  sought  for.  But 
the  very  cause  that  makes  such  control  sought  for,  disenables  those  who  apply  to 
such  authority  from  judging  of  it.  Judgments  formed  in  such  cases  are,  there- 
fore, commonly  wrong ;  and  the  necessitous  state  into  which  such  applicants  have 
fallen,  is  almost  always  a  bad  counselor.  This  was  the  case  with  us.  We  sought 
and  sought,  but  did  not  find.  And  at  no  time  was  there  more  error  relative  to 
myself.  Every  one  thought  me  unfit  to  govern  ;  but  I  was  still  permitted  to  re- 
main, as  if  I  were  fit,  and  the  relations  of  all  remained  such  as  if  I  were  so. 
This  condition  of  affairs  could  lead  to  no  relief.  I  should  surely  have  succumbed 
under  it,  had  not  the  protecting  providence  of  God  so  graciously  watched  over 
me,  that  often  the  apparently  unavoidable  results  of  my  faults  passed  by,  as  if  they 
had  not  happened.  This  is  so  true,  that  I  myself  do  not  know,  and  can  not  ex- 
plain it  to  myself,  how  I  havo  been  able  to  pass  through  the  turbulent  and  track- 
less chaos  into  which  I  have  been  cast,  without  entire  ruin  ;  and  to  attain  to  that 
point  of  power  and  efficiency  upon  which  1  see  and  feel  myself  to  be  standing. 


HOW  GERTRUDE  TEACHES  HER  CHILDREN. 


THIS  work  was  written  in  1801,  and  is  in  the  form  of  letters  to  Pesta- 
lozzi's  friend  Gesner,  of  Zurich,  son  of  the  author  of  "  The  Death  of 
Abel ;  "  and  was,  indeed,  drawn  up  at  his  request.  Its  purpose  is  to 
present  in  a  condensed  form  the  history  of  the  development  of  Pestalozzi's 
views  on  the  principles  and  practice  of  instruction,  up  to  the  period  of  the 
composition  of  the  work. 

The  name  is  not  appropriate  to  the  actual  contents  of  the  book ;  for 
.instead  of  containing  such  details  of  rudimentary  instructions  as  mothers 
might  give,  it  is  mainly  a  careful  and  condensed  compend  of  an  extended 
course,  adapted  to  the  minds  of  teachers  of  some  experience.  The  title 
was  given  with  reference  to  the  previous  work,  "  Leonard  and  Gertrude" 
in  which  Gertrude  is  represented  as  a  pattern  teacher  for  young  children  ; 
and  it  signifies  merely  that  the  present  work  sets  forth  at  greater  length 
the  principles  and  practice  of  the  former  one.  It  has  an  allusive  pro- 
priety only. 

The  work  commences  with  reference  to  Pestalozzi's  early  confusion  of 
ideas  respecting  education,  and  states  briefly  his  early  labors  for  improv- 
ing the  condition  of  the  poor.  But  he  says  his  early  hopes,  as  ex- 
pressed in  Iselin's  "Ephemeridez  "  (1782,)  were  no  less  comprehensive  than 
his  later  ones.  His  progress  had  been  in  working  out  the  details  of  the 
application  of  his  principles  to  practical  instruction.  In  the  course  of  the 
unsuccessful  experiment  at  Neuhof,  he  proceeds,  he  had  acquired  an 
acquaintance  with  the  real  needs  of  the  Swiss  people,  altogether  deeper 
than  that  of  his  cotemporaries.  In  the  despondent  years  then  following, 
he  endeavored  to  do  something  toward  supplying  those  needs,  by  com- 
posing and  publishing  his  "  Inquiries  into  the  Course  of  Nature  in  the 
Development  of  Mankind."  But  Pestalozzi  was  not  made  for  a  master  of 
theories,  whether  in  social  or  mental  philosophy,  or  elsewhere.  His  work 
neither  satisfied  him  nor  commanded  the  attention  of  the  public. 

Pestalozzi  then  traces  his  career  as  a  practical  educator,  beginning  with 
his  sudden  resolution  to  become  a  schoolmaster,  and  his  bold  assumption,* 
single-handed  and  without  money,  books,  apparatus,  or  any  thing  except 
a  ruinous  old  building,  of  the  charge  of  the  school  of  homeless  poor 
children  at  Stanz,  and  pausing  to  give  brief  accounts,  partly  autobiograph- 
ical, of  his  three  assistants,  Kriisi,  Buss,  and  Tobler.* 

Besides  the  exposition  of  his  practical  views,  of  which  the  following 
pages  present  an  abstract  in  h:s  own  words,  the  work  contains  a  consider- 

*  These  autobiographies  will  be  found  in  the  "American  Journal  of  Education,"  Vol.  V., 
p.  155. 


184  How  GERTRUDE  TEACHES  HER  CHILDREN. 

able  portion  of  polemic  matter,  directed  against  cotemporaiy  evils  and 
errors  in  received  modes  of  education.  A  principal  origin  of  the  superfi- 
cial and  unsubstantial  character  of  these  modes  he  finds  to  have  been  the 
introduction  of  printing,  which,  according  to  him,  has  caused  an  excessive 
devotion  to  mere  language,  without  regard  to  thought,  and  has  resulted 
in  making  book-men,  instead  of  thinkers. 

The  latter  portion  of  the  work  contains  a  somewhat  obscure  and  un- 
satisfactory statement  of  the  position  of  religious  education  in  his  system, 
and  of  the  mode  of  giving  it ;  which,  however,  is  by  no  means  to  be  taken 
as  an  adequate  presentation  of  Pestalozzi's  views  on  this  point. 

The  positive  part  of  the  book  may  be  considered  as  an  extended  an- 
swer to  the  question,  "What  is  to  be  done  to  give  the  child  all  the  theo- 
retical and  practical  knowledge  which  he  will  need  in  order  to  perform 
properly  the  duties  of  his  life,  and  thus  to  attain  to  inward  contentment?  " 

This  answer  professes  to  discuss  both  the  theory  and  the  practice  re- 
ferred to  in  the  question ;  but  the  former  is  predominant,  although  there* 
is  an  honest  effort  to  give  the  latter  its  proper  place. 

The  following  pages  will  sufficiently  present  the  chief  features  of  the 
most  important  portion  of  the  work,  that  which  sets  forth  the  system  of 
instruction  within  the  three  primary  divisions  of  Number,  Form,  and 
Speech.  For  a  more  full  account  and  analysis  of  this  book,  see  "Ameri- 
can Journal  of  Education,"  Vol.  IV,,  Number  10,  (Sept  185V,)  p.  72,  et 
na. 


PESTALOZZTS  ACCOUNT  OF  HIS  OWN  EDUCATIONAL  EXPERIENCE. 


POPULAR  education  once  lay  before  me  like  an  immense  marsh,  in  the  mire  of 
which  I  waded  about,  until  I  had  discovered  the  sources  from  which  its  waters 
spring,  as  well  as  the  causes  by  which  their  free  course  is  obstructed,  and 
made  myself  acquainted  with  those  points  from  which  a  hope  of  draining  its 
pools  might  be  conceived. 

You  shall  now  follow  me  yourself  for  a  while  through  these  labyrinthine  wind- 
ings, from  which  I  extricated  myself  by  accident  rather  than  by  my  own  art 
or  reflection. 

Ever  since  my  youthful  days,  the  course  of  my  feelings,  rolled  on  like  a 
mighty  stream,  was  directed  to  this  one  point ;  namely,  to  stop  the  sources  of 
that  misery  in  which  I  saw  the  people  around  me  immersed. 

It  is  now  more  than  thirty  years  since  I  first  put  my  hand  to  this  same  work, 
which  I  am  still  pursuing.  Iselin's  "  Ephemerides  "  bear  witness  that  my  present 
dreams  and  wishes  are  not  more  comprehensive  than  those  which  I  was  even 
then  seeking  to  realize. 

I  lived  for  years  together  in  a  circle  of  more  than  fifty  pauper  children ;  in 
poverty  did  I  share  my  bread  with  them,  and  lived  myself  like  a  pauper,  to  try 
if  I  could  teach  paupers  to  live  as  men. 

The  plan  which  I  had  formed  for  their  education  embraced  agriculture,  manu- 
facture, and  commerce.  But,  young  as  I  was,  I  knew  not  what  attention,  and 
what  powers,  the  realization  of  my  dreams  would  require.  I  allowed  myself 
to  be  guided  by  a  deep  and  decided  feeling  of  what  seemed  to  me  essential  to 
the  execution  of  my  project ;  and  it  is  true  that,  with  all  the  experience  of  after 
life,  I  have  found  but  little  reason  to  modify  the  views  I  then  entertained. 
Nevertheless  my  confidence  in  their  truth,  founded  upon  the  apparent  infallibil- 
ity of  my  feeling,  became  my  ruin.  For  it  is  equally  true,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  in  no  one  of  the  three  departments  above-mentioned  did  I  possess  any  prac- 
tical ability  for  the  management  of  details,  nor  was  my  mind  of  a  cast  to  keep 
up  a  persevering  attention  to  little  things ;  and,  in  an  insulated  position,  with 
limited  means,  I  was  unable  to  procure  such  assistance  as  might  have  made  up 
for  my  own  deficiencies.  In  a  short  time  I  was  surrounded  with  embarrass- 
ments, arid  saw  the  great  object  of  my  wishes  defeated. 

In  the  struggle,  however,  in  which  this  attempt  involved  me,  I  had  learned  a 
vast  deal  of  truth ;  and  I  was  never  more  fully  convinced  of  the  importance 
of  my  views  and  plans  than  at  the  moment  when  they  seemed  to  be  for  ever  set 
at  rest  by  a  total  failure.  My  heart  too  was  still  aiming  at  the  same  object; 
and,  being  now  myself  plunged  into  wretchedness,  I  had  a  better  opportunity, 
than  any  man  in  prosperity  ever  can  have,  of  making  myself  intimately  ac- 
quainted with  the  wretchedness  of  the  people,  and  with  its  sources.  I  suffered 
even  as  the  people  suffered ;  and  they  appeared  to  me  such  as  they  were,  and 
as  they  would  not  have  shewn  themselves  to  any  one  else.  For  a  length  of 


186  PESTALOZZI'S  EDUCATIONAL  EXPERIENCE. 

years  I  sat  amongst  them  like  the  owl  among  the  birds.  I  was  cast  away  by 
men,  and  their  sneers  followed  after  me,  "Wretch  that  thou  art!"  they  ex- 
claimed ;  "  thou  art  less  able  than  the  meanest  laborer  to  help  thyself,  and  yet 
thou  fanciest  thyself  able  to  help  the  people!  "  Yet  amidst  the  scorn  which  I 
read  on  all  lips,  the  mighty  stream  of  my  feeling  was  still  directed  to  the  same 
point;  to  stop  the  sources  of  the  misery  in  which  I  saw  the  people  around  me 
sinking;  and  hi  one  respect,  at  least,  my  power  was  daily  increased.  My  mis- 
fortune was  a  school,  in  which  Providence  had  placed  me  to  learn  truth  for  my 
great  object ;  and  I  learned  of  it  more  and  more.  That  which  deceived  no 
other,  has  ever  deceived  me ;  but  what  deceived  every  one  else,  now  deceived 
me  no  longer. 

I  knew  the  people  in  a  manner  in  which  no  one  around  me  knew  them. 
The  glitter  of  prosperity  arising  from  the  newly-introduced  manufactures,  the 
freshened  aspect  of  their  houses,  the  abundance  of  then-  harvests,  all  this  could 
not  deceive  me ;  nor  even  the  Socratic  discoursing  of  some  of  their  teachers, 
nor  the  reading  associations  among  bailiffs'  sons  and  hair-dressers.  I  saw  their 
misery,  but  I  lost  myself  in  the  vast  prospect  of  its  scattered  and  insulated 
sources ;  and  while  my  knowledge  of  their  real  condition  became  every  day 
more  extensive,  my  practical  capability  of  remedying  the  evils  under  which 
they  labored,  increased  in  a  far  less  proportion.  Even  "Leonard  and  Gertrude" 
the  work  which  sympathy  with  their  sufferings  extorted  from  me,  was,  after  all, 
but  the  production  of  my  internal  inability  to  offer  them  any  real  help.  I 
stood  among  my  contemporaries  like  a  monument  which  bespeaks  life,  but  is  in 
itself  dead.  Many  cast  a  glance  upon  it ;  but  they  could  appreciate  me  and 
my  plans  no  better  than  I  myself  was  able  to  form  a  correct  estimate  of  the 
various  powers,  and  the  details  of  knowledge,  necessary  to  carry  them  into 
effect. 

I  grew  careless ;  and,  being  swallowed  up  in  a  vortex  of  anxiety  for  outward 
action,  I  neglected  to  work  out  to  a  sufficient  depth,  within  my  own  mind,  the 
foundations  of  what  I  intended  to  bring  about. 

Had  I  done  this,  to  what  internal  elevation  might  I  have  risen  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  my  purposes !  and  how  rapidly  should  I  then  have  reached  my 
aim !  I  attained  it  not,  because  I  was  unworthy  of  it ;  because  I  sought  it 
merely  in  the  outward;  because  I  allowed  my  love  of  truth  and  of  justice  to 
become  a  passion  which  tossed  me  about,  like  a  torn-up  reed,  on  the  waves  of 
life,  nor  would  permit  me  to  take  root  again  in  firm  ground,  and  to  imbibe 
that  nourishment  and  strength  of  which  I  stood  so  much  in  need  for  the  fur- 
therance of  my  object.  It  was  far  too  vain  a  hope,  that  some  one  else  would 
rescue  that  loose  reed  from  the  waves,  and  secure  it  in  the  ground  in  which  I 
myself  neglected  to  plant  it. 

Oh,  my  dear  friend !  Who  is  the  man  that  has  but  one  feeling  in  common 
with  my  soul,  and  knows  not  how  low  I  must  now  have  sunk  ?  And  thou, 
my  beloved  Gesner,  before  thou  readest  on,  wilt  consecrate  a  tear  to  my 
course 

Deep  dissatisfaction  was  gnawing  my  heart ;  eternal  truth  and  eternal  recti- 
tude were  converted  by  my  passion  into  airy  castles.  With  a  hardened  mind  1 
clung  stubbornly  to  words  and  sounds  which  had  lost  within  me  the  basis  of 
truth.  Thus  I  degraded  myself  every  day  more  with  the  worship  of  common- 
places, and  the  trumpeting  of  those  quackeries,  wherewith  these  modern  times 
pretend  to  better  the  condition  of  mankind. 


PESTALOZZI'S  EDUCATIONAL  EXPERIENCE.  igf 

I  was  not,  however,  insensible  to  this  internal  abasement,  nor  did  I  fail  to 
struggle  against  it.  For  three  years  I  toiled,  more  than  I  can  express,  over  my 
"Inquiries  into  the  Course  of  Nature  in  the  Development  of  Mankind,"  chiefly 
with  a  view  to  get  settled  in  my  own  mind  as  to  the  progress  of  my  favorite 
ideas,  and  to  bring  my  innate  feelings  into  harmony  with  my  notions  of  civil 
right  and  moral  obligation.  But  this  work,  likewise,  is  no  more  than  a  testi- 
mony of  my  internal  incapacity ;  a  mere  play  of  my  reflective  faculties.  The 
subject  is  not  comprehensively  viewed,  nor  is  there  a  due  exercise  of  power  to 
combat  myself,  or  a  sufficient  tendency  to  that  practical  ability  which  was 
requisite  for  my  purposes.  It  only  served  to  increase  that  deficiency  within 
myself,  arising  from  a  disproportion  between  my  power  and  my  knowledge, 
which  it  was  indispensable  that  I  should  fill  up,  though  I  grew  every  day  more 
unable  to  do  so. 

Nor  did  I  reap  more  than  I  sowed.  My  book  produced  upon  those  around 
me  the  same  effect  as  did  every  thing  else  I  did ;  hardly  any  one  understood 
me ;  and  in  my  immediate  neighborhood  there  were  not  two  men  to  be  found, 
who  did  not  hint  that  they  considered  the  whole  book  as  a  heap  of  nonsense. 
And  even  lately,  a  man  of  importance,  who  has  much  kindness  for  me,  said 
with  Swiss  familiarity :  "  Don't  you  now  feel  yourself,  Mr.  Pestalozzi,  that  when 
you  wrote  that  book  you  did  not  know  what  you  wanted  to  be  at  ?  "  Thus, 
however,  to  be  misunderstood  and  wronged  was  my  lot:  but  instead  of  profiting 
by  it,  as  I  ought  to  have  done,  I  warred  against  my  misfortune  with  internal 
scorn  and  a  general  contempt  of  mankind ;  and  by  thus  injuring  the  foundation, 
which  my  cause  ought  to  have  had  within  myself,  I  did  it  infinitely  more  harm 
than  all  those  could  do,  by  whom  I  was  misunderstood  and  despised.  Yet  I 
had  not  lost  sight  of  my  aim ;  but  my  adherence  to  it  was  no  more  than  the 
obstinacy  of  a  perverted  imagination  and  a  murmuring  heart ;  it  was  on  a  pro- 
faned soil  that  I  sought  to  cherish  the  sacred  plant  of  human  happiness. 

I,  who  had  just  then,  in  my  "Inquiries,"  declared  the  claims  of  civil  right  as 
mere  claims  of  our  animal  nature,  and  therefore  essential  impediments  to  moral 
purity,  the  only  thing  that  is  of  real  value  to  human  nature,  now  descended 
so  low,  that  amidst  the  violent  convulsions  of  the  revolution  I  expected  the 
mere  sound  of  social  systems,  and  of  political  theories,  to  produce  a  good  effect 
upon  the  men  of  my  age,  who,  with  few  exceptions,  lived  upon  mere  puff  and 
swell,  seeking  power,  and  hankering  after  well-set  tables. 

My  head  was  gray ;  yet  I  was  still  a  child.  With  a  heart  in  which  all  the 
foundations  of  life  were  shaken,  I  still  pursued,  in  those  stormy  times,  my  fa- 
vorite object ;  but  my  way  was  one  of  prejudice,  of  passion,  and  of  error.  To 
bring  to  light  the  inveterate  causes  of  social  evils,  to  spread  impassioned  views 
of  the  social  constitution  and  the  unalterable  basis  of  man's  rights,  nay,  to  turn 
to  account  the  spirit  of  violence  which  had  risen  up  amongst  us,  for  the  cure  of 
some  of  the  ills  under  which  the  people  suffered ;  such  were  the  means  by 
which  I  hoped  and  sought  to  effect  my  purpose.  But  the  purer  doctrines  of 
my  former  days  had  been  but  sound  and  word  to  the  men  among  whom  I  lived ; 
how  much  less,  then,  was  it  to  be  expected,  that  they  should  apprehend  my 
meaning  in  the  view  which  I  now  took.  Even  this  inferior  sort  of  truth  they 
contaminated  by  their  filth :  they  remained  the  same  as  ever ;  and  they  acted 
toward  me  in  a  manner  which  I  ought  to  have  anticipated,  but  which  I  did  not 
anticipate,  because  the  dream  of  my  wishes  kept  me  suspended  in  mid-air,  and 


188  PESTALOZZI'S  EDUCATIONAL  EXPERIENCE. 

my  soul  was  a  stranger  to  that  selfishness  by  which  I  might  have  recognized 
them  in  their  true  colors.  I  was  deceived  not  only  in  every  fox,  but  also  in 
every  fool ;  and  to  every  one  that  came  before  me,  and  spoke  well,  I  gave  full 
credit  for  the  sincerity  of  his  intentions.  With  all  this  I  knew  more  than  any 
one  else  about  the  people,  and  about  the  sources  of  their  savage  and  degraded 
condition ;  but  I  wished  nothing  further  than  that  those  sources  might  be 
stopped,  and  the  evils  which  sprang  from  them  arrested ;  and  the  new  men, 
(novi  homines)  of  Helvetia,  whose  wishes  went  further,  and  who  had  no  knowl- 
edge of  the  condition  of  the  people,  found,  of  course,  that  I  was  not  made  for 
them.  These  men,  in  their  new  position,  like  shipwrecked  women,  took  every 
straw  for  a  mast,  on  which  the  republic  might  be  driven  to  a  safe  shore  ;  but 
me,  me  alone,  they  took  for  a  straw  not  fit  for  a  fly  to  cling  to. 

They  knew  it  not,  they  intended  it  not ;  but  they  did  me  good,  more  good 
than  any  men  have  ever  done  me.  They  restored  me  to  myself;  for,  in  the 
amazement  caused  by  the  sudden  change  of  their  ship's  repair  into  a  shipwreck, 
I  had  not  another  word  left,  but  that  which  I  pronounced  in  the  first  days  of 
confusion :  "  I  will  turn  schoolmaster."  For  this  I  found  confidence.  I  did 
turn  schoolmaster.  Ever  since  I  have  been  engaged  in  a  mighty  struggle,  and 
compelled,  as  it  were,  in  spite  of  myself,  to  fill  up  those  internal  deficiencies  by 
which  my  purposes  were  formerly  defeated. 

To  lay  before  you,  my  friend,  the  whole  of  my  existence,  and  my  operations, 
since  that  period,  is  my  present  task.  Through  Legrand  I  had  made  some  in- 
terest with  the  first  Directoire  for  the  subject  of  popular  education,  and  I  was 
preparing  to  open  an  extensive  establishment  for  that  purpose  in  Argovie,  when 
Stanz  was  burnt  down,  and  Legrand  requested  me  to  make  the  scene  of  mis- 
ery the  first  scene  of  my  operations.  I  went;  I  would  have  gone  into  the  re- 
motest clefts  of  the  mountains,  to  come  nearer  to  my  aim ;  and  now  I  really  did 
come  nearer.  .  .  .  But  imagine  my  position.  .  .  .  Alone,  destitute  of  all 
means  of  instruction,  and  of  all  other  assistance,  I  united  in  my  person  the 
offices  of  superintendent,  paymaster,  steward,  and  sometimes  chambermaid,  in 
a  half-ruined  house.  I  was  surrounded  with  ignorance,  disease,  and  with  every 
kind  of  novelty.  TJje  number  of  children  rose,  by  degrees,  to  eighty :  all  of 
different  ages ;  some  full  of  pretensions ;  others  inured  to  open  beggary ;  and 
all,  with  a  few  solitary  exceptions,  entirely  ignorant.  What  a  task !  to  educate, 
to  develop  these  children,  what  a  task ! 

I  ventured  upon  it.  I  stood  in  the  midst  of  these  children,  pronouncing  va- 
rious sounds,  and  asking  them  to  imitate  them ;  whoever  saw  it,  was  struck 
with  the  effect.  It  is  true  it  was  a  meteor  which  vanishes  in  the  air  as  soon  as 
it  appears.  No  one  understood  its  nature.  I  did  not  understand  it  myself.  It 
was  the  result  of  a  simple  idea,  or  rather  of  a  fact  of  human  nature,  which  was 
revealed  to  my  feelings,  but  of  which  I  was  far  from  having  a  clear  consciousness. 


PESTALOZZL— METHODS  OF  ELEMENTARY  INSTRUCTION. 


1.    THE  ELEMENTARY  MEANS  OP  INSTRUCTION  DEPEND  UPON  NUMBER,  FORM, 

AND  SPEECH. 

IDEAS  of  the  elements  of  instruction  were  for  a  long  time  working  in  my 
mind,  vividly  though  indistinctly,  until  at  last,  like  a  "Deus  ex  machina"  the 
conception  that  the  means  of  the  elucidation  of  all  our  intuitional  knowkdge  pro- 
ceed from  number,  form,  and  speech,  seemed  suddenly  to  give  me  new  light  on 
the  point  which  I  was  investigating. 

After  long  consideration  of  the  subject — or  rather,  uncertain  dreams  about 
it — I  at  last  set  myself  to  conceive  how  an  educated  man  proceeds,  and  must 
proceed,  when  endeavoring  to  abstract,  and  gradually  make  clear,  any  subject 
now  floating  confusedly  and  dimly  before  his  eyes. 

In  such  a  case,  he  will — and  must — observe  the  three  following  points : — 

1.  How  many  subjects,  or  how  various  ones,  are  before  him. 

2.  How  they  look ;  what  is  their  form  and  outline. 

3.  "What  they  are  called ;  how  he  can  recall  each  to  mind  by  means  of  a 
sound,  a  word. 

The  doing  this  evidently  presupposes,  in  such  a  man,  the  following  developed 
powers : — 

1 .  The  power  of  considering  unlike  objects  in  relation  to  their  forms,  and  of 
recalling  to  mind  their  material. 

2.  That  of  abstracting  these  objects  as  to  their  number,  and  of  distinctly 
conceiving  them  either  as  one  or  as  many. 

3.  That  of  repeating  by  language,  and  fixing,  so  as  not  to  be  forgotten,  the 
conception  of  an  object  as  to  number  and  form. 

Thus  I  conclude  that  number,  form,  and  speech  are  commonly  the  element- 
ary means  of  instruction,  since  they  include  the  whole  sum  of  the  external 
qualities  of  an  object,  so  far  as  relates  to  its  extent  and  number,  and  become 
known  to  my  intellect  through  speech.  Instruction,  as  an  art,  must  thus,  by 
an  invariable  law,  proceed  from  this  threefold  basis,  and  endeavor 

1.  To  teach  the  children  to  consider  any  object  brought  before  their  con- 
sciousness, as  a  unity ;  that  is,  as  separate  from  whatever  it  seems  to  be  bound 
up  with. 

2.  To  teach  them  an  acquaintance  with  the  form  of  each  such  object;  its  size 
and  relations. 

3.  To  make  them  as  early  as  possible  acquainted  with  the  whole  circle  of 
words  and  names  of  all  the  objects  known  to  them. 

The  instruction  of  children  being  to  proceed  from  these  three  elementary 
points,  it  is  evident,  again,  that  the  first  efforts  of  the  art  must  be  directed  to 
develop,  establish,  and  strengthen,  with  the  utmost  psychological  skill,  the  fun- 
damental knowledge  of  numbering,  measuring,  and  speaking,  upon  whose  cor- 
rect attainment  depends  the  right  knowledge  of  all  visible  objects ;  and  after- 


190  PESTALOZZL— METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION. 

ward  to  bring  the  means  of  developing  and  training  these  three  departments 
of  mental  attainment  to  the  highest  degree  of  simplicity,  of  perfection,  and  of 
agreement  together. 

The  only  difficulty  which  occurred  to  me  upon  the  recognition  of  these  three 
elementary  points  was  this :  Why  are  not  all  those  conditions  of  things,  which 
we  recognize  through  the  three  senses,  not  elementary  in  the  same  sense,  as 
number,  ( form,  and  speech?  But  I  soon  observed  that  all  possible  objects  have 
number,  form,  and  name;  but  that  the  other  attributes,  recognized  through  the 
five  senses,  are  not  possessed  in  common  with  all  others  as  those  are,  but  only 
sometimes  one  and  sometimes  another  of  them.  Between  the  three  attributes 
of  number,  form,  and  name,  and  others,  I  also  found  this  substantial  and  dis- 
tinct difference — that  I  was  unable  to  make  any  of  the  others  elementary  points 
of  human  knowledge ;  while,  on  the  contrary,  I  saw  just  as  clearly  that  all 
other  such  attributes  of  things  as  are  recognized  by  the  five  senses,  permit 
themselves  to  be  put  into  immediate  relations  with  those  three ;  and  in  conse- 
quence, that  in  the  instruction  of  children,  knowledge  of  all  the  other  qualities 
of  subjects  must  be  deduced  immediately  from  the  preliminary  knowledge  of 
form,  number  and  name.  I  saw  that  by  my  acquaintance  with  the  unity,  form, 
and  name  of  an  object,  my  knowledge  of  it  becomes  definite  knowledge ;  that 
by  gradually  aiming  to  know  all  its  other  qualities,  I  acquire  a  clear  knowl- 
edge ;  and  by  understanding  the  relations  of  all  facts  relative  to  it,  I  acquire  an 
intelligent  knowledge. 

I  now  proceeded  further,  and  found  that  all  our  knowledge  proceeds  from 
three  elementary  faculties,  namely: — 

1.  The  active  faculty,  which  renders  us  capable  of  language. 

2.  The  indefinite  power  of  mere  perception  by  the  senses,  which  gives  us  our 
consciousness  of  all  forms. 

3.  The  definite  power  of  perception  not  by  the  senses  alone,  from  which  must 
be  gained  the  consciousness  of  unity,  and  through  it  the  power  of  counting 
and  computing. 

I  thus  concluded  that  the  art  of  educating  our  race  must  be  based  upon  the 
first  and  simplest  results  of  these  three  fundamental  elements — sound,  form,  and 
number ;  and  that  instruction  in  any  one  department  could  "and  would  never 
lead  to  a  result  beneficial  to  our  nature,  considered  in  its  whole  compass,  unless 
these  three  simple  results  of  our  fundamental  faculties  should  be  recognized  as 
the  universal  starting-points  for  all  instruction,  fixed  as  such  by  nature  herself; 
and  unless  these  results  were  accordingly  developed  into  forms  proceeding  uni- 
versally and  harmoniously  from  them,  and  calculated  efficiently  and  surely  to 
carry  instruction  forward  to  its  completion,  through  the  steps  of  a  progression 
unbroken,  and  dealing  alike  and  equally  with  all  three.  This  I  concluded  the 
only  means  of  proceeding  in  all  three  of  these  departments,  from  indistinct  in- 
tuitions to  definite  ones,  from  intuitions  to  clear  perceptions,  and  from  clear  per- 
ceptions to  intelligent  ideas. 

Thus,  moreover,  I  find  art  actually  and  most  intimately  united  with  nature, 
or  rather  with  the  ideal  by  means  of  which  nature  makes  the  objects  of  the 
creation  known  to  us ;  and  so  was  solved  my  problem,  viz.,  to  discover  a  com- 
mon origin  of  all  the  means  of  the  art  of  instruction,  and,  at  the  same  time,  that 
form  of  it  in  which  the  development  of  the  race  is  defined  by  the  constitution 
itself  of  our  nature: — and  the  difficulty  removed,  in  the  way  of  applying  the 


PESTALOZZI.-METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION.  IQl 

mechanical  laws,  which  I  recognized  as  at  the  foundation  of  human  instruction, 
to  that  system  of  instruction  which  the  experience  of  thousands  of  years  haa 
given  to  the  human  race  for  its  own  development ;  that  is,  to  writing,  arithme- 
tic, reading,  $b. 

2.  THE  FIRST  ELEMENTARY  MEANS  OF  INSTRUCTION  is,  ACCORDINGLY, 

SOUND. 
From  this  arise  the  following  subdivisions  of  instruction : — 

A.  In  Tones ;  or,  the  means  of  training  the  organs  of  speech. 

B.  In  Words ;  or,  the  means  of  becoming  acquainted  with  single  objects. 

C.  In  Language ;  or,  the  means  of  becoming  able  to  express  ourselves  with 
clearness  relatively  to  such  objects  as  become  known  to  us,  and  to  all  which  we 
are  capable  of  seeing  in  those  objects. 

To  repeat  these  subdivisions. 

A.  Instruction  in  Tones.  This,  again,  divides  itself  into  instruction  in  speak- 
ing tones,  and  singing  tones. 

a.  Speaking  tones. 

With  respect  to  these,  it  should  not  be  left  to  chance  whether  they  are  heard 
by  the  child  at  an  early  or  late  period ;  and  in  great  number  or  in  small.  It  is 
important  that  he  should  hear  all  of  them,  and  as  early  as  possible. 

His  knowledge  of  them  should  be  complete,  before  he  has  attained  the  ability 
to  form  them ;  and  in  like  manner  his  power  of  imitating  them  all  and  with  fa- 
cility should  be  completely  developed,  before  the  forms  of  the  letters  are  laid 
before  him,  and  before  his  first  exercises  in  reading. 

The  spelling-book  must  therefore  contain  all  the  sounds  of  which  language 
consists ;  and  should  in  every  family  be  daily  repeated  by  the  child  who  is 
studying  them,  in  the  presence  of  the  child  in  the  cradle;  so  that  the  knowl- 
edge of  those  sounds  may  thus  by  frequent  repetition  become  deeply  impressed 
upon  the  latter,  and  indeed  be  made  quite  indelible,  even  before  it  is  able  to 
repeat  one  of  them. 

No  one  who  has  not  seen  it  can  imagine  how  the  pronunciation  of  such  sim- 
ple sounds  as  ba,  ba,  ba,  da,  da,  da,  ma,  ma,  ma,  la,  la,  la,  &c.,  excites  the  at- 
tention of  young  children,  and  stimulates  them ;  or  of  the  gain  to  the  general 
powers  of  acquisition  of  the  child  which  comes  from  the  early  acquaintance 
with  these  sounds. 

In  accordance  with  this  principle  of  the  importance  of  the  knowledge  of 
sound  and  tones,  before  the  child  can  imitate  them,  and  in  the  conviction  that 
it  is  equally  important  what  representations  and  objects  come  before  the  eyes 
of  young  children,  and  what  sounds  come  to  his  ears,  I  have  composed  a  "Book 
for  Mothers ; "  in  which  I  explain,  by  illuminated  wood-cuts,  not  only  the  fun- 
damental points  of  number  and  form,  but  also  the  most  important  other  attri- 
butes with  which  the  five  senses  make  us  acquainted ;  and  in  which,  by  an 
acquaintance  with  many  names,  thus  assured,  and  rendered  vivid  by  much 
actual  inspection,  future  reading  is  prepared  for  and  made  easy.  In  the  same 
way  also,  by  practice  in  sounds,  preparatory  to  spelling,  I  prepare  and  facilitate 
this  study  also ;  for  by  this  book,  I  make  these  sounds  at  home  and,  I  may  say, 
quarter  them  upon  the  child's  mind,  before  the  child  can  pronounce  a  syllable 
of  them. 

I  intend  to  accompany  these  cuts,  for  the  youngest  children,  with  a  book  of 


}C)2  PESTALOZZI.— METHODS   OF    INSTRUCTION. 

methods,  in  which  every  word  which  must  be  said  to  the  child  upon  each  sub- 
ject elucidated,  shall  be  stated  so  clearly  that  even  the  most  inexperienced 
mother  can  sufficiently  attain  my  purpose;  for  the  reason  that  not  a  word  will 
need  to  be  added  to  those  which  I  shall  set  forth.  f 

Thus  prepared  from  the  "Book  for  Mothers,"  and  acquainted  by  actual  practice 
from  the  spelling-book  with  the  entire  extent  of  sounds,  the  child  must,  as  soon  as 
his  organs  become  trained  to  articulation,  become  accustomed  to  repeat  over  the 
various  columns  of  sounds  in  the  spelling-book,  with  as  much  ease  as  he  does 
such  other  purposeless  sounds  as  people  give  him  to  imitate. 

This  book  differs  from  all  previous  ones  in  this :  that  its  method  is  universal ; 
and  that  the  pupil  himself  proceeds  in  a  visible  manner,  beginning  with  the 
vowels,  and  constructing  syllables  by  the  gradual  addition  of  consonants  be- 
hind and  before,  in  a  manner  which  is  comprehensive,  and  which  perceptibly 
facilitates  speech  and  reading. 

My  method  is :  to  take  each  vowel  with  all  the  consonants  one  after  another, 
fromb  to  z,  and  thus  to  form  at  first  the  simple  easy  syllables,  ab,  ad,  afj  &c.  >• 
and  then  to  put  before  each  of  these  simple  syllables  such  consonants  as  are 
actually  so  placed  in  common  language ;  as,  for  instance,  before  ab,  in  succession, 
b,  g,  sch,  st,  &c. ;  making  bab,  gab,  schab,  &c.  By  going  through  all  the  vow- 
els in  this  manner,  with  this  simple  prefixing  of  consonants,  I  formed  first  easy 
syllables,  and  then,  by  prefixing  more  consonants,  more  difficult  ones.  This  ex- 
ercise necessitated  manifold  repetitions  of  the  simple  sounds,  and  a  general  and 
orderly  classification  of  all  the  syllables  which  are  alike  in  their  elements ;  re- 
sulting in  an  indelible  impression  of  their  sounds,  which  is  a  very  great  assist- 
ance in  learning  to  read. 

The  advantages  of  the  book  are  explained  in  it,  as  follows : — 

1.  It  keeps  the  child  at  spelling  single  syllables,  until  sufficient  skill  is  ac- 
quired in  the  exercises. 

2.  By  the  universal  employment  of  similarities  of  sound,  it  renders  the  repeti- 
tion of  similar  forms  not  disagreeable  to  the  child,  and  thus  facilitates  the 
design  of  impressing  them  indelibly  on  the  mind. 

3.  It  very  rapidly  enables  the  children  to  pronounce  at  once  every  new  word 
formed  by  the  addition  of  new  consonants  to  syllables  already  known,  without 
being  obliged  to  spell  them  over  beforehand ;  and  also  to  spell  these  combina- 
tions by  heart,  which  is  afterward  a  great  assistance  in  orthography. 

In  the  short  introduction  prefixed  to  the  book,  explaining  the  use  of  it,  moth- 
ers are  required  themselves  to  repeat  daily  to  their  children,  before  they  can 
read,  these  series  of  sounds,  and  to  pronounce  them  in  different  successions,  so 
as  to  attract  attention,  and  to  give  an  acquaintance  with  each  separate  sound. 
This  recitation  must  be  prosecuted  with  redoubled  zeal,  and  begun  again  from 
the  beginning,  as  soon  as  the  children  begin  to  speak,  to  enable  them  them- 
selves to  repeat  them,  and  thus  to  learn  quickly  to  read. 

In  order  to  make  the  knowledge  of  the  written  characters,  which  must  pre- 
cede spelling,  easier  to  the  children,  I  have  annexed  them  to  the  spelling-book, 
printed  in  a  large  character,  in  order  to  make  their  distinctions  more  easily  dis- 
cernible by  the  eye. 

These  letters  are  to  be  pasted  separately  on  stiff  paper,  and  put  before  the 
children.  The  vowels  are  in  red,  to  distinguish  them,  and  must  be  learned 
thoroughly,  as  well  as  their  pronunciation,  before  going  further.  After  this 


PESTALOZZI— METHODS    OF   INSTRUCTION.  293 

they  are  by  little  and  little. to  be  taught  the  consonants,  but  always  along  with 
a  vowel ;  because  they  can  not  be  pronounced  without  a  vowel. 

As  soon  as  the  children,  partly  by  their  exercise,  partly  by  the  spelling  which 
I  am  about  to  describe,  begin  to  have  a  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  letters,  they 
may  be  set  at  the  threefold  series  of  letters,  also  appended  to  the  book ;  where, 
in  a  smaller  type,  is  given,  over  the  German  printed  letter,  the  German  written, 
and  the  Roman  printed  letters.  The  child,  reading  each  syllable  in  the  form  of 
letter  already  familiar  to  him,  and  then  repeating  it  in  the  other  two,  will  learn 
to  read  in  all  three  alphabets,  without  any  loss  of  time. 

The  same  principle  is  still  to  be  adhered  to  in  these  exercises :  that  every  syl- 
lable is  nothing  but  a  sound  constructed  by  the  addition  of  a  consonant  to  a 
vowel ;  the  vowel  being  thus  always  the  foundation  of  the  syllable.  The  vowel 
should  be  laid  down  first — or  slid  out  on  the  spelling-board  hung  up  on  the 
wall,  which  should  have  a  groove  at  the  upper  and  lower  side,  in  which  the  let- 
ters should  stand  and  move  easily  backward  and  forward — and  the  consonants 
added,  in  the  order  given  in  the  book.  Each  syllable  should  at  the  same  time 
be  pronounced  by  the  teacher  and  repeated  by  the  children,  until  indelibly  im- 
pressed on  their  minds.  Then  the  teacher  may  ask  for  each  letter,  in  its  order 
or  out  of  it ;  and  make  them  spell  the  syllables  when  covered  up  out  of  sight. 

It  is  very  necessary,  especially  in  the  first  part  of  the  book,  to  proceed  slowly, 
and  never  to  proceed  to  any  thing  new  until  what  precedes  it  has  been  learned 
beyond  the  power  of  forgetting ;  for  upon  this  depends  the  foundation  of  the 
whole  course  of  instruction  in  reading,  upon  which  what  follows  is  to  be  built 
by  small  and  gradual  additions. 

"When  in  this  way  the  children  have  arrived  at  a  certain  degree  of  facility  in 
spelling,  it  may  be  interchanged  with  exercises  of  another  kind.  Thus,  for  ex- 
ample, a  word  may  be  spelled  by  beginning  with  one  letter  and  adding  the 
others,  one  after  another,  until  it  is  complete,  pronouncing  it  as  each  letter  is 
added ;  as,  p,  pi,  pin.  Then  the  reverse  process  may  be  followed,  by  taking 
away  one  letter  after  another,  and  thus  going  backward  in  the  same  manner ; 
repeating  it  until  the  children  can  spell  the  word  by  heart,  correctly.  The  same 
thing  can  also  be  done  by  beginning  at  the  end  of  the  word,  instead  of  the  be- 
ginning. 

Lastly,  the  word  may  be  divided  into  syllables,  the  syllables  numbered,  and 
repeated  and  spelled  promiscuously  by  their  numbers. 

Great  advantages  may  be  gained  in  schools,  by  teaching  the  children,  from 
the  beginning,  to  repeat  the  words  all  together  at  the  same  moment;  so  that  the 
sound  produced  by  all  shall  be  heard  as  a  simple  sound,  whether  the  words 
were  repeated  to  them,  or  pointed  out  by  the  number  of  the  tetters  or  syllables. 
This  keeping  time  together  renders  the  instructor's  part  quite  mechanical,  and 
operates  with  incredible  power  upon  the  senses  of  the  children. 

"When  these  exercises  in  spelling  have  been  gone  through  with  on  the  tablet, 
the  book  itself  is  then  to  be  put  into  the  child's  hand,  as  a  first  reading-book ; 
and  he  is  to  be  kept  at  work  upon  it  until  he  has  acquired  the  most  complete 
facility  in  reading  it. 

So  much  for  instruction  in  the  sounds  of  speech.  I  have  to  add  a  word,  on 
the  sounds  of  singing.  But  as  singing  proper  can  not  be  reckoned  a  means  of 
proceeding  from  indistinct  intuitions  to  clear  ideas,  that  is,  as  one  of  the  means 
of  instruction  which  I  am  at  present  discussing,  but  is  rather  a  capacity,  to  be 

28 


194  PESTALOZZI.— METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION. 

developed  from  other  points  of  view,  and  for  other  purposes,  I  put  off  its  con- 
sideration to  the  time  when  I  shall  consider  the  system  of  education ;  saying  at 
present  only  this :  4hat  singing,  according  to  the  general  principle,  begins  with 
what  is  simplest,  completes  this,  and  proceeds  only  gradually  from  it,  when 
completed,  to  the  beginning  of  what  is  new.  ' 

B.  The  second  department  of  the  domain  of  sound,  or  of  the  special  element- 
ary means 'of  instruction  derived  from  sound,  is — 

Instruction  in  words,  or  rather  in  names. 

I  have  already  remarked  that  the  child  must  receive  its  first  instruction  in 
this  department,  also,  from  the  "  Book  for  Mothers.'11  This  is  so  arranged,  that  the 
most  important  subjects  of  the  world,  and  especially  those  that,  as  generic 
names,  include  whole  classes  of  subjects  within  themselves,  are  discussed  ;  and 
the  mother  is  enabled  to  make  the  child  well-acquainted  with  the  most  import- 
ant of  all  these  names.  By  this  course  of  proceeding,  the  child  is  prepared, 
even  from  its  earliest  years,  for  instruction  in  names ;  that  for  the  second  spe- 
cial means  of  instruction  depending  on  the  power  of  uttering  sounds. 

The  instruction  in  names  is  given  by  means  of  series  of  names  of  the  more 
important  subjects,  from  all  the  realms  of  nature,  history,  geography,  and  hu- 
man vocations  and  relations.  These  columns  of  words  are  put  into  the  child's 
hand  immediately  after  the  end  of  his  studies  in  the  spelling-book,  as  a  mere 
exercise  in  learning  to  read ;  and  experience  has  shown  me  that  it  is  possible 
for  the  children  to  have  completely  committed  to  memory  the  columns,  within 
no  more  time  than  is  required  to  learn  to  read  them  readily.  The  advantage  of 
so  complete  a  knowledge  of  such  various  and  comprehensive  views  of  names 
at  this  stage,  is  immeasurable,  in  relation  to  the  facilitation  of  subsequent  in- 
struction. 

C.  The  third  special  means  of  instruction  proceeding  from  the  faculty  of 
sounds  is — 

Instruction  in  language  itself. 

And  here  is  the  point  at  which  begins  to  be  developed  the  proper  method  by 
which  the  art  of  instruction,  by  taking  advantage  of  the  development  of  the  capaci- 
ties of  the  human  mind,  can  give  an  acquaintance  with  language  which  shall  keep 
up  with  the  course  of  nature  in  general  development.  But  I  should  say,  rather, 
here  begins  to  develop  itself  the  method  by  which,  according  to  the  will  of  the 
Creator,  man  can  secure  himself  from  the  hands  of  mere  natural  blindness  and 
natural  capability  for  instruction,  to  be  put  into  the  hands  of  the  higher  powers 
which  have  been  developing  in  him  for  thousands  of  years ;  the  method  by 
•which  the  human  race,  independently — man — can  secure  for  the  development 
of  his  powers  that  more  definite  and  comprehensive  tendency  and  that  more 
rapid  progress,  for  which  nature  has  given  him  power  and  means  but  no  guid- 
ance, and  in  which  she  can  never  guide  him  while  he  is  man  only ;  the  form  in 
which  man  can  do  all  this  without  interfering  with  the  loftiness  and  simplicity 
of  the  physical  development  of  nature,  the  harmony  that  exists  in  our  merely 
sensuous  development ;  without  taking  away  any  part  of  ourselves,  or  a  single 
hair  of  that  uniform  protection  which  mother  nature  exercises  over  even  the 
mere  physical  development. 

All  these  attainments  must  be  reached  by  means  of  a  finished  art  of  teaching 
language,  and  the  highest  grade  of  psychology ;  thus  securing  the  utmost  per- 
fection in  the  mechanism  of  the  natural  progression  from  confused  intuitions  to 


PESTALOZZI.— METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION.  ^95 

intelligent  ideas.  This  is,  in  truth,  far  beyond  my  powers ;  and  I  feel  myself  to 
be,  on  this  subject,  as  the  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness. 

But  the  Egyptian,  who  first  fastened  a  shovel  with  a  crooked  handle  to  the 
horn  of  an  ox,  and  thus  taught  him  to  perform  the  labor  of  a  man  at  digging, 
thus  prepared  the  way  for  the  invention  of  the  plow,  although  he  did  not  bring 
it  to  perfection. 

My  services  are  only  the  first  bending  of  the  shovel-handle,  and  the  fastening 
of  it  to  a  new  horn.  But  why  do  I  speak  by  similitudes  ?  I  ought  to  and  will 
state  what  I  mean,  plainly,  and  without  circumlocution. 

I  desire  to  remove  the  imperfections  from  school  instruction ;  both  from  the 
obsolete  system  of  stammering  servile  old  schoolmasters,  and  from  the  later  sys- 
tem which  has  by  no  means  taken  its  place — in  the  common  schools ;  and  to 
knit  it  to  the  immovable  power  of  nature  herself  and  to  the  light  which  God 
kindles  and  ever  maintains  in  the  hearts  of  fathers  and  mothers ;  to  the  desires 
of  parents  that  their  children  may  be  respectable  before  God  and  man. 

In  order  to  define  the  form  of  our  instruction  in  language,  or  rather  the  vari- 
ous forms  in  which  its  object  can  be  gained,  that  is,  through  which  we  are  to 
become  able  to  express  ourselves  distinctly  on  subjects  with  which  we  are  ac- 
quainted, and  as  to  every  thing  which  we  see  about  them,  we  must  inquire: — 

1.  "What  is  man's  ultimate  object  in  language? 

2.  "What  are  the  means,  or  rather  what  is  the  progression,  through  which  na- 
ture herself,  by  the  gradual  development  of  the  faculty  of  language,  brings  us 
to  this  end  ? 

The  answer  to  the  first  question  is,  evidently :  To  bring  our  race  from  ob- 
scure intuitions  to  intelligent  ideas;  and  to  the  second:  The  means  by  which 
she  gradually  brings  us  to  this  end  have,  unquestionably,  this  order  of  suc- 
cession, viz. : — 

a.  We  recognize  an  object  generally,  and  designate  it  as  a  unity — an  object. 

b.  "We  become  generally  acquainted  with  its  characteristics,  and  learn  to  des- 
ignate them. 

c.  We  acquire,  through  language,  the  power  of  defining  more  in  detail  these 
traits,  by  verbs  and  adverbs,  and  making  clear  to  ourselves  their  modifications 
by  modifications  in  words  themselves,  and  in  their  juxtaposition. 

1.  On  the  effort  to  learn  the  names  of  objects,  I  have  already  spoken. 

2.  Efforts  to  comprehend  and  to  teach  the  names  of  the  qualities  of  objects 
as  desirable,  are  divided  into — 

a.  Efforts  to  teach  the  child  to  express  himself  with  distinctness  in  relation 
to  number  and  form :  (Number  and  form,  as  qualities  possessed  by  all  things, 
are  the  two  most  comprehensive  universal  abstractions  of  physical  nature ;  and 
are  the  two  central  points  to  which  are  referred  all  other  means  of  rendering 
our  ideas  intelligent.) 

b.  Efforts  to  teach  the  child  to  express  himself  with  distinctness  upon  all 
other  qualities  of  things,  besides  number  and  form;    as  well  those  qualities 
which  are  perceived  through  the  five  senses,  as  those  which  are  perceived,  not 
by  means  of  a  simple  intuition  of  them,  but  by  means  of  our  faculties  of  imag- 
ination and  judgment. 

Children  must  early  become  accustomed  to  consider  with  ease  form  and 
number,  the  first  physical  universal  qualities  which  the  experience  of  thou- 
sands of  years  has  taught  us  to  abstract  from  the  nature  of  all  things ;  and  to 


19G  PESTALOZZl.—  METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION. 

consider  them,  not  merely  as  qualities  inherent  in  each  particular  thing,  but  as 
physical  universal  qualities.  He  must  not  only  learn  early  to  distinguish  a 
round  and  a  triangular  thing  as  such,  but  must  as  early  as  possible  have  im- 
pressed upon  his  mind  the  idea  of  circularity,  and  triangularity,  as  a  pure  ab- 
straction ;  so  that  he  may  be  able  to  apply  the  proper  term,  expressing  this 
universal  abstract  idea,  to  whatever  occurs  to  him  in  nature  which  is  round, 
triangular,' simple,  fourfold,  &c.  Here  also  comes  up  clearly  the  reason  why 
speech  is  to  be  and  must  be  treated  as  a  means  of  expressing  form  and  num- 
ber, in  a  special  manner,  differing  from  its  treatment  as  a  means  of  expressing 
all  the  other  qualities  which  we  observe  in  natural  objects  by  the  five  senses. 

I  therefore  began,  even  in  the  "Book  for  Mothers"  to  lead  the  children  to- 
ward the  clear  knowledge  of  those  universal  qualities.  This  book  furnishes 
both  a  comprehensive  view  of  the  most  usual  forms  and  the  simplest  means  of 
making  the  first  relations  of  numbers  intelligible  to  the  child. 

More  advanced  steps  toward  this  purpose  must,  however,  together  with  the 
corresponding  exercises  in  language,  be  put  off  to  a  later  period,  and  must  be 
connected  with  the  special  exercises  in  number  and  form,  which  two,  as  the 
elementary  points  of  our  knowledge,  must  be  taken  up  after  a  full  course  of 
exercises  in  language. 

The  cuts  in  the  elementary  manual  for  this  instruction,  the  "Book  for  Moth- 
ers, or  for  the  earliest  childhood,"  are  so  selected  as  to  bring  forward  all  the  uni- 
versal physical  qualities  of  which  we  become  aware  through  the  five  senses ; 
and  as  to  enable  mothers  readily  to  give  their  children  the  command  of  the 
most  definite  expressions  relative  to  them,  without  any  pains  of  their  own. 

As  relates,  next,  to  those  qualities  of  things  which  become  known  to  us,  not 
immediately  through  the  five  senses,  but  through  the  separating  powers  of  our 
faculty  of  comparison,  imagination,  and  faculty  of  abstraction,  in  regard  to 
them  also,  I  adhere  to  my  principle,  not  to  endeavor  to  bring  any  human  opin- 
ion to  a  premature  ripeness,  but  to  make  use  of  the  necessary  knowledge  of 
the  appropriate  abstract  terms  by  the  children,  as  a  mere  exercise  of  memory ; 
and  also  to  some  extent  as  a  light  nourishment  for  the  play  of  their  imagina- 
tions and  of  their  powers  of  forethought. 

In  reference  to  such  objects  as  we  recognize  immediately  by  the  five  senses, 
and  in  reference  to  which  it  is  necessary  to  teach  the  child  as  quickly  as  possi- 
ble to  express  himself  with  precision,  I  take  from  a  dictionary  substances  whose 
most  prominent  qualities  are  such  as  we  can  distinguish  by  the  five  senses,  and 
put  down  with  them  the  adjectives  which  describe  those  qualities ;  as — 

(Aal.)  Eel.     Slippery,  worm-shaped,  tough-skinned. 

(Aa,s.)  Carcass.     Dead,  offensive. 

(Abend.)  Evening.     Quiet,  cheerful,  cool,  rainy. 

(Aclise.)  Axle.     Strong,  weak,  greasy. 

(Acker.}  Field.  Sandy,  clayey,  sowed,  manured,  fertile,  profitable,  unprofit- 
able. 

Then  I  reverse  this  proceeding,  and  in  the  same  way  select  from  the  dictiona- 
ry adjectives  expressing  distinguishing  qualities  of  objects  recognized  by  the 
five  senses,  and  set  down  after  them  the  substantive  names  of  objects  possess- 
ing them ;  as — 

Round.     Ball,  hat,  moon,  sun 

Light.     Feather,  down,  air. 


PESTALOZZI. -METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION.  19*7 

Heavy.     Gold,  lead,  oak-wood. 

Hot.     Oven,  summer-day,  fire. 

High.     Tower,  mountain,  giants,  trees. 

Deep.     Oceans,  seas,  cellars,  graves. 

Soft.     Flesh,  wax,  butter. 

Elastic,     Steel-springs,  whalebone. 

I  did  not  endeavor,  by  completing  these  explanatory  suffixes,  to  diminish  the 
field  of  the  child's  independent  intellectual  activity ;  but  only  gave  a  few  terms, 
calculated  to  appeal  distinctly  to  his  senses,  and  then  inquired,  in  continuation: 
What  else  can  you  mention  of  the  same  sort  ? 

In  far  the  greatest  number  of  cases  the  children  found  that  their  experience 
furnished  them  additional  terms,  frequently  such  as  had  not  occurred  to  the 
teacher ;  and  thus  their  circle  of  knowledge  was  widened  and  elucidated  in  a 
manner  either  impossible  by  the  catechetical  method,  or  possible  only  with  a 
hundred  times  greater  expenditure  of  art  and  exertion. 

In  all  proceedings  by  catechisation,  the  child  is  constrained,  in  part  by  the 
limits  of  the  defined  idea  respecting  which  he  is  catechised,  in  part  by  the 
form  in  which  it  is  done,  in  part  by  the  limits  of  the  teacher's  knowledge,  and 
lastly,  and  more  important,  by  the  limits  of  a  painful  care  lest  they  should  get 
out  of  the  regular  artistic  track.  What  unfortunate  limitations  for  the  child ! 
but  in  my  course  they  are  avoided. 

Having  finished  this  portion  of  study,  I  proceed,  by  means  of  the  dictionary, 
to  communicate  to  the  child,  now  variously  acquainted  with  the  objects  of  the 
world,  a  further  increase  of  the  gradually  growing  clearness  of  his  knowledge 
of  objects  so  far  as  known  to  him. 

For  this  purpose,  I  divide  language,  that  great  witness  of  the  past  respecting 
all  that  now  exists,  into  four  chief  heads,  viz. : — 

1.  Geography. 

2.  History. 

3.  Nature, 

4.  Natural  History. 

But  in  order  to  avoid  all  unnecessary  repetition  of  the  same  words,  and  to 
make  the  form  of  instruction  as  brief  as  possible,  I  divide  these  chief  heads  into 
some  forty  subheads,  and  bring  the  names  of  objects  before  the  children  only 
under  those  latter  subdivisions. 

I  then  turn  attention  to  that  great  object  of  my  intuitions,  myself;  or 
rather,  to  that  whole  series  of  terms  in  language  which  relate  to  myself;  by 
bringing  all  that  language,  that  great  witness  of  the  past,  says  upon  man  under 
the  following  chief  heads. 

First  head.  What  does  language  say  of  man,  considered  as  a  merely  phys- 
ical being;  as  a  member  of  the  animal  world? 

Second  head.  What  does  she  say  of  him  as  striving  toward  physical  inde- 
pendence by  means  of  the  social  state  ? 

Third  Jiead.  What  does  she  say  of  him  as  a  reasoning  being,  striving  for 
inner  independence  ;  or  self-improvement  ? 

I  then  divide  these  three  chief  heads,  as  before,  into  some  forty  subheads, 
and  bring  them  before  the  children  only  under  the  latter. 

The  first  exhibition  of  these  series  of  names,  both  relating  to  men  and  to  the 
other  subjects  of  the  world,  must  be  strictly  alphabetical,  without  any  inter- 


198  PESTALOZZI.— METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION. 

mixture  of  any  opinion,  and  not  as  any  consequence  of  any  opinion ;  but  a 
gradually  increased  clearness  in  the  knowledge  of  them  must  be  attained  merely 
by  the  juxtaposition  of  similar  intuitions,  and  similar  intuitional  ideas. 

"When  this  has  been  done,  when  the  witness  of  the  past  as  to  all  that  now 
exists  has  thus  been  made  useful  in  the  whole  simplicity  of  her  alphabetical 
arrangement,  I  propose  this  question: — 

How  does  the  method  arrange  these  subjects  further,  for  fuller  definition  ? 
To  answer  this,  a  new  labor  begins.  The  same  columns  of  words  with  which 
the  child  has  become  acquainted  in  seven  or  eight  columns,  in  an  alphabetical 
order,  almost  beyond  the  possibility  of  forgetting  them,  are  laid  before  him 
again,  in  the  same  columns,  but  in  a  classified  manner,  by  which  the  method 
arranges  them  very  differently,  and  enables  the  child  himself  to  arrange  them 
on  the  new  principle. 

The  plan  is  this :  The  different  heads,  under  which  the  words  are  to  be  newly 
arranged,  are  put  in  a  row,  and  distinguished  by  a  series  of  numbers,  abbrevia- 
tions, or  some  other  arbitrary  marks. 

The  child  must,  during  his  first  studies  in  reading,  become  thoroughly  master 
of  this  series  of  heads ;  and  he  may  then  find,  in  the  columns  of  words,  against 
each  word,  the  mark  of  that  head  under  which  it  belongs;  and  thus  he  can,  at 
first  sight  of  the  figure,  tell  under  what  head  it  belongs,  and  thus  himself  alter 
the  alphabetical  nomenclature  into  a  scientific  one. 

I  do  not  know  that  this  plan  needs  to  be  illustrated  by  an  example ;  but, 
though  it  seems  to  me  almost  superfluous,  I  will  still  give  one,  on  account  of 
the  newness  of  the  plan.  Thus,  for  instance,  one  of  the  subdivisions  of  Europe 
is  Germany.  Let  the  child  first  become  acquainted,  beyond  the  power  of  for- 
getting them,  with  the  subdivision  of  Germany  into  ten  circles.  Now  let  the 
names  of  the  cities  of  Germany  be  laid  before  him  in  alphabetical  order,  to 
be  read ;  there  being,  at  the  name  of  each  city,  the  number  of  the  circle  in 
which  it  lies.  As  soon  as  he  can  read  these  names  of  cities  fluently,  let  him  be 
shown  how  the  numbers  annexed  to  them  refer  to  the  heads  above,  and  the 
child  will  after  a  few  lessons  be  able  to  locate  all  the  cities  of  Germany  accord- 
ing to  the  heads  thus  set  above  them.  Let  there  be  put  before  him,  for  instance, 
the  following  names  of  German  places,  with  figures  :— 

Aachen,  8  Allendorf,  5  Altona,  10 

Aalen,  3  Allersperg,  2  Altorf,  1 

Abendberg,  4  Alschausen,  3  Altranstiidt,  9 

Aberthan,  11  Alsleben,  10  Altwasser,  13 

Acken,  10  Altbunzlau,  11  Alkerdissen,  8 

Adersbach,  11  Altena,  8  Amberg,  2 

Agler,  1  Altenau,  10  Ambras,  1 

Ahrbergen,  10  Altenberg,  9  Amoneburg,  6 

Aigremont,  8  Altenburg,  9  Andernach,  6. 

Ala,  1  Altensalza,  10 

Allenbach,  5  Altkirchen,  8 

He  may  then  read  these  as  follows: — 
Aachen  is  in  the  Westphalian  circle. 
Abendberg  is  in  the  Franconian  circle. 
Aacken  is  in  the  Lower  Saxon  circle ;  &c. 
The  child  will  thus  evidently  be  enabled,  at  the  first  glance  at  the  number  or 


PESTALOZZI.-METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION.  jgg 

mark  which  distinguishes  the  head  under  which  any  word  belongs,  to  determine 
it ;  and  thus,  as  was  said,  to  change  the  alphabetical  nomenclature  into  a  scien- 
tific one. 

And  having  gone  so  far,  I  find  myself,  in  this  direction,  at  the  limit  of  my 
course,  as  peculiar  to  me ;  and  the  powers  of  the  children  so  developed,  that 
they  can,  in  any  department  of  the  method  to  which  their  disposition  inclines 
them,  and  to  which  they  are  inclined  to  attend,  make  an  independent  use  for 
themselves  of  the  means  of  assistance  which  already  exist  in  all  these  depart- 
ments, but  which  are  of  such  a  character  that,  hitherto,  only  a  few  fortunate 
persons  have  been  able  to  use  them.  To  this  point,  and  no  further,  have  I 
sought  to  attain.  What  I  desired,  and  desire,  was,  not  to  teach  the  world  any 
art  or  science — for  I  know  none — but  to  make  more  easy  for  the  people  at 
large  the  mastery  of  the  points  of  commencement  of  all  arts  and  sciences ;  to 
open  to  the  powers  of  the  poor  and  weak  in  the  country,  neglected  and  given 
up  to  desolation,  the  approaches  to  learning,  which  are  the  approaches  to  hu- 
manity ;  and,  if  possible,  to  burn  down  the  barrier  which  keeps  the  more  lowly 
of  the  citizens  of  Europe  far  behind  the  barbarians  of  the  north  and  south  in 
respect  to  independent  intellectual  power,  which  is  the  basis  of  all  efficient  ac- 
quirement. It  keeps  them  so,  because,  notwithstanding  our  windy  boastings  on 
universal  enlightenment,  it  deprives  ten  men  to  one  of  the  right  of  all  men  in 
society,  the  right  of  being  instructed ;  or  at  least  of  the  possibility  of  making 
use  of  this  right. 

May  that  barrier,  after  my  death,  burn  up  with  a  bright  flame !  But  yet  I 
know  that  I  myself  am  only  one  feeble  coal,  lying  among  wet  straw.  But  I 
see  a  wind,  and  that  not  far  off,  which  shall  kindle  the  coal  into  a  blaze ;  the 
wet  straw  around  me  will  gradually  dry,  grow  warm,  kindle,  and  at  last  burn. 
Yes,  however  wet  it  is  round  me  now,  it  will  burn,  it  will  burn ! 

But  I  have  occupied  so  much  time  with  the  second  of  the  special  means  of 
instruction  in  language,  that  I  find  I  have  not  yet  said  any  thing  of  the  third 
of  those  means,  by  which  is  to  be  attained  the  last  purpose  of  instruction,  the 
rendering  our  ideas  intelligent.  It  is  this : — 

c.  The  endeavor  to  enable  the  child  correctly  to  define,  by  language,  the  con- 
nections of  objects  with  each  other,  and  their  intermodifications  by  number, 
tune,  and  relation ;  or,  rather,  to  make  still  better  understood  the  existence,  the 
qualities,  and  the  powers  of  all  those  objects  of  which  knowledge  has  been 
gained  by  the  study  of  names,  and  made  clear  to  a  certain  extent  by  juxtaposi- 
tion of  their  names  and  their  qualities. 

From  this  point  of  view  we  may  discern  the  foundations  on  which  a  real 
grammar  is  to  be  constructed,  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  further  progression  by 
which,  through  this  means,  we  are  to  arrive  at  the  last  purpose  of  instruction, 
the  rendering  intelligent  of  ideas. 

Here,  also,  I  prepare  the  children  for  the  first  steps  by  very  simple  but  still 
psychological  instruction  in  speaking ;  and,  without  a  word  of  any  form  or  rule, 
I  cause  the  mother  first  to  repeat  to  the  child,  as  mere  exercises  in  speaking, 
sentences,  which  are  to  be  repeated  after  her,  almost  as  much  on  account  of  the 
training  of  the  organs  of  speech,  as  of  the  sentences  themselves.  The  two  ob- 
jects, practice  in  speaking  and  the  learning  of  words  as  language,  must  be 
kept  apart  from  each  other;  and  the  former  must  also  be  attended  to  by  itself, 
by  proper  exercises.  In  the  exercises  for  both  purposes  at  once,  then,  the 
mother  repeats  to  the  child  the  following  sentences: — 


200  PESTALOZZI.-METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION. 

The  father  is  kind. 

Thy  butterfly  has  variously-colored  wings. 

Cattle  eat  grass. 

The  pine  is  straight-stemmed.* 

When  the  child  has  pronounced  these  so  often  that  it  is  easy  for  him,  the 
mother  inquires,  "Who  is  good?  What  has  various-colored  wings?"  And 
again,  "What  is  the  father?  What  has  the  butterfly?"  And  so  on,  03 
follows : —  - 

Who  is  ?    What  are  ? 

Carnivorous  beasts  eat  flesh. 

Deer  are  light-footed. 

Eoots  are  spread  out. 

Who  has?    What  has? 

The  lion  hath  strength. 

Man  has  reason. 

The  hound  has  a  keen  scent. 

The  elephant  has  a  trunk,  &c.,  &c. 

Thus  I  proceed,  through  the  whole  extent  of  the  declensions  and  conjuga- 
tions, to  unite  the  first  and  second  steps  of  these  exercises ;  going  also,  in  par- 
ticular, into  the  use  of  the  verbs,  after  a  mode  of  which  I  give  the  following 

examples : — 

Siiwple  Connection. 
Eegard — the  teacher's  words. 
Breathe — through  the  lungs. 
Bend — a  tree. 
Tie — a  sheaf,  the  stockings,  &c. 

After  this  comes  the  second  species  of  exercise,  in  verbs  in  composition ;  as, 

Eegard.  I  regard  (acute)  the  teacher's  words,  my  duty,  my  estate.  I  regard 
one  person  more  than  another  ;  I  judge  (eracJite)  whether  a  thing  is  so,  or  other- 
wise ;  I  take  an  important  matter  into  consideration  (obacht  /)!  watch  over  (beo- 
bachte)  a  man  whom  I  do  not  trust,  an  aifair  which  I  am  desirous  of  arranging, 
and  my  duty ;  a  good  man  honors  (hochachtet)  virtue,  and  despises  (verachtet] 
vice. 

So  far  as  a  man  regards  any  thing,  he  is  attentive  (achtsam)  to  it ;  so  far  as  he 
does  not  regard  it,  he  is  inattentive  (unachtsam.} 

I  regard  myself  more  than  every  thing  else ;  and  care  more  for  (acliUn  auf} 
myself  than  every  thing  else. 

Then  I  proceed  to  enlarge  the  sphere  of  these  exercises  by  additions  gradu- 
ally more  extensive,  and  thus  progressively  more  variously  developed  and  more 
definite ;  as,  for  instance : — 

I  shall. 

I  shall  gain. 

I  shall  gain  my  health  by  no  other  means. 

I  shall  gain  my  health,  after  all  that  I  have  suffered,  by  no  other  means. 

I  shall  gain  my  health,  after  all  that  I  have  suffered  in  my  illness,  by  no  other 
means. 

I  shall  gain  my  health,  after  all  that  I  have  suffered  in  my  sickness,  by  no 
other  means  than  by  temperance,  &c.,  &c. 

All  these  sentences  are  then  each  to  be  carried  through  the  whole  tense- 
conjugation;  as, 

T  shall  gain. 

Thou  wilt  gain,  &c. 

I  shall  gain  my  health. 

Thou  wilt  gain  thy  health,  &c. 

The  same  may  then  be  carried  through  the  different  tenses. 

Care  is  taken  to  select,  for  these  sentences,  so  firmly  to  be  fixed  in  the  child's 

*  In  the  German,  all  these  sentences  are  constructed  precisely  like  the  first ;  and  are  as 
simple.—  Trans. 


Stand.     To  rest  on  the  legs  with  the  body  upright. 

o  rest  upon  any  thing  with  the  bocly  horizontal,  &c.,  &c. 


PESTALOZZI.— METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION.  201 

mind,  such  as  shall  be  particularly  instructive,  elevating,  and  suitable  to  his 
condition. 

"With  them  I  join  examples  of  description  of  material  objects,  in  order  to  ex- 
ercise and  strengthen  in  the  children  the  powers  which  these  exercises  develop 
in  them.  For  instance : — 

A  bell  is  a  bowl  or  vessel,  open  below,  wide,  thick,  round,  usually  hanging 
free,  growing  smaller  from  below  up,  egg-shaped  at  the  top,  and  having  in  the 
middle  of  it  a  perpendicular  bar,  hanging  loose,  which,  upon  a  violent  motion  of 
the  bell,  strikes  it  from  below  on  both  sides,  and  thus  occasions  the  sound  which 
we  hear  from  it. 

Go.     To  move  forward  step  by  step. 

Stand.     T 

Lie.     To 

I  would  gladly  leave  these  exercises  in  language,  at  my  death,  as  a  legacy  to 
my  pupils,  making  them,  by  means  of  brief  observations  annexed  to  the  more 
important  verbs,  a  vehicle  for  conveying  to  their  minds  the  same  impressions 
which  have  been  made  upon  my  own,  by  the  experiences  of  my  life  on  the  sub- 
jects of  their  significance.  Thus  I  would  make  these  exercises  in  words  a 
means  of  imparting  truth,  correct  views,  and  pure  feelings  on  all  the  doings  and 
failings  of  men.  For  example : — 

Breathe,  (athmen.')  Thy  life  depends  upon  a  breath.  Man  !  when  thou  snort- 
est  like  a  tyrant,  and  inspirest  the  pure  air  of  the  earth  like  poison  into  thy 
lungs,  what  doest  thou  but  to  hasten  to  become  breathless,  and  so  free  humanity, 
weary  of  thy  snorting,  from  thy  presence. 

But  I  must  leave  this  part  of  the  subject. 

I  have  dwelt  at  length  upon  language  as  a  means  of  the  gradual  clearing  up 
of  our  ideas.  But  it  is  the  most  important  means  for  that  purpose.  My  meth- 
od of  instruction  is  distinguished  especially  in  this,  that  it  makes  more  use  of 
language,  as  a  means  of  lifting  the  child  from  obscure  intuitions  to  intelligent 
ideas,  than  has  heretofore  been  the  case;  and  also  in  this,  that  it  excludes 
from  the  first  elementary  instruction  all  combinations  of  words  which  presup- 
pose an  actual  knowledge  of  language.  Any  one  who  admits  how  nature  leads 
to  intelligent  comprehension  of  all  tilings  by  a  clear  comprehension  of  single 
things,  will  admit  also  that  single  words  must  be  clearly  understood  by  the 
child  before  he  can  intelligently  comprehend  them  in  connection ;  and  any  one 
who  admits  this,  rejects  at  once  all  the  received  elementary  books  of  instruc- 
tion ;  for  they  all  presuppose  an  acquaintance  with  language  in  the  child  before 
they  communicate  it  to  him.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  even  the  best  school- 
book  of  the  last  century  forgot  that  the  child  must  learn  to  talk  before  he  can 
be  talked  with.  This  omission  is  remarkable,  but  it  is  true ;  and  since  I  ob- 
served it,  I  have  wondered  no  longer  that  we  can  develop  children  into  other 
men  than  were  trained  by  those  who  had  so  far  forgotten  both  the  piety  and 
the  wisdom  of  antiquity.  Language  is  an  art — an  immeasurable  art ;  or,  rather, 
the  compendium  of  all  the  arts  which  our  race  has  acquired.  It  is  in  a  peculiar 
sense  the  reflection  of  all  the  impressions  which  the  whole  extent  of  nature  has 
made  upon  our  race.  As  such  I  use  it,  and  seek,  by  means  of  its  spoken 
sounds,  to  produce  in  the  children  the  same  impressions  which  have  occasioned 
the  production  of  the  sounds  by  mankind.  The  gift  of  speech  is  a  great  one. 
It  gives  the  child,  in  a  moment,  what  it  has  taken  nature  thousands  of  years  to 
give  mankind.  It  is  said  of  the  poor  beast,  What  would  he  be  if  he  knew  his 
strength?  And  I  say  of  man,  What  would  he  be  if  he  knew  his  strength — 
through  language? 


202  PESTALOZZI.— METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION. 

It  is  a  great  defect  in  the  very  heart  of  human  education,  that  we  have  been 
so  forgetful  of  what  was  proper,  as  not  only  to  do  nothing  toward  teaching 
the  lower  classes  to  speak,  but  as  to  have  permitted  the  speechless  to  learn  by 
rote  isolated  abstract  terms. 

In  truth,  the  Indians  could  not  do  more  in  order  to  keep  their  lower  classes 
eternally  in  stupidity,  and  in  the  lowest  ranks  of  humanity. 

Let  these  facts  be  denied  by  any  one  who  dares.  I  appeal  to  all  clergymen, 
all  authorities,  all  men  who  live  among  the  people,  who,  in  the  midst  of  their 
so  great  carelessness,  are  subjected  to  such  a  distorted  and  mistaken  model  of 
fatherly  care.  Let  any  one  who  has  lived  among  such  a  people  stand  forward, 
and  testify  whether  he  has  not  experienced  how  difficult  it  is  to  get  any  idea 
into  the  heads  of  the  poor  creatures.  But  all  are  agreed  on  the  point.  "  Yes, 
yes,"  say  the  clergy;  "When  they  come  to  us  they  do  not  understand  one 
word  of  our  instructions."  "  Yes,  yes,"  say  the  judges;  ."However  right  they 
are,  it  is  impossible  for  them  to  make  any  one  understand  the  justice  of  their 
cause."  The  lady  says,  pitifully  and  proudly,  they  are  scarcely  a  step  in  advance 
of  beasts ;  they  can  not  be  trained  to  any  service.  Fools,  who  can  not  count 
five,  look  upon  them  as  more  foolish  than  themselves,  the  fools ;  and  villains  of 
all  sorts  cry  out,  each  with  the  gesture  natural  to  him,  "  "Well  for  us  that  it  is 
so !  If  it  were  otherwise,  we  could  no  longer  buy  so  cheaply,  nor  sell  so  dearly." 

Nearly  the  same  is  the  speech  of  all  the  boxes  of  the  great  European  Chris- 
tian comic  theater,  regarding  the  pit :  and  they  can  not  speak  otherwise  of  it ; 
for  they  have  been  for  a  century  making  the  pit  more  mindless  than  any  Asiatic 
or  heathen  one  would  be.  I  repeat  my  position  once  more : — The  Christian 
people  of  our  portion  of  the  world  is  sunken  to  this  depth,  because,  for  more 
than  a  century,  in  its  lower  schools,  a  power  over  the  human  mind  has  been  ac- 
corded to  empty  words,  which  not  only  in  itself  destroyed  the  power  of  atten- 
tion to  the  impressions  of  nature,  but  destroyed  the  very  susceptibility  itself  of 
men  to  them.  I  say,  once  more,  that  while  this  has  been  done,  and  has  made 
of  our  European  Christian  people  the  most  wordy,  rattle-box  people  on  the  face 
of  the  earth,  they  have  not  been  taught  to  speak.  This  being  the  case,  it  is  no 
wonder  that  the  Christianity  of  this  century  and  this  part  of  the  world  has  its 
present  prospects;  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  a  wonder  that,  considering  all  the 
bungling  methods  which  have  been  proved  upon  it  in  our  wordy  and  rattle-box 
schools,  it  has  retained  so  much  of  its  native  force  as  can  still  be  recognized 
every  where  in  the  hearts  of  the  people.  But,  God  be  praised !  the  folly  of  all 
these  apish  methods  will  always  find  an  end,  an  antagonist  in  human  nature 
itself;  and  will  cease  to  injure  our  race,  when  it  has  reached  the  highest  point 
of  its  apishness  which  can  be  endured.  Folly  and  error,  in  whatever  garb,  con- 
tain the  seeds  of  their  own  transitoriness  and  destruction ;  truth  alone,  in  every 
form,  contains  within  itself  the  seeds  of  eternal  life. 

The  second  elementary  means,  from  which  all  human  knowledge,  and  conse- 
quently the  existence  of  all  means  of  instruction,  proceeds  and  must  proceed,  is 

FORM. 

Instruction  in  form  must  precede  the  conscious  intuition  of  things  having 
form ;  whose  representation,  for  purposes  of  instruction,  must  be  deduced  in 
part  from  the  nature  of  the  means  of  intuition,  and  in  part  from  the  purpose  of 
instruction  itself. 

The  whole  sum  of  our  knowledge  comes, 


PESTALOZZI.— METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION.  203 

1.  Through  the  impressions  derived  from  all  things  around  us,  when  brought 
into  relation  with  our  five  senses.     This  mode  of  intuition  is  without  rule,  con- 
fused, and  its  progress  is  very  confused  and  tedious. 

2.  Through  whatever  is  brought  before  our  senses  by  the  intervention  of 
methodic  guidance,  so  far  as  this  depends  upon  our  parents  and  teachers.     This 
mode  of  intuition  naturally  corresponds  to  the  intelligence  and  activity  of  our 
parents  and  teachers,  in  respect  to  comprehensiveness  and  connection ;  and  is 
of  a  more  or  less  correct  psychological  character ;  and,  according  to  the  same 
rule,  it  pursues  a  course  more  or  less  rapid,  and  leading  with  more  or  less  speed 
and  certainty  toward  the  purpose  of  instruction,  the  attainment  of  intelligent 
ideas. 

3.  Through  our  own  determination  to  attain  to  knowledge,  and  to  obtain  intui- 
tions by  our  independent  striving  after  the  various  means  of  them.     Knowl- 
edge thus  attained  possesses  a  positive  and  proper  value ;  and,  by  giving  to  the 
results  of  our  intuitions  a  free  existence  within  ourselves,  brings  us  nearer  to 
the  attainment  of  a  moral  influence  upon  our  own  education. 

4.  Through  the  results  of  effort  and  labor  in  our  callings,  and  all  activity 
which  has  not  mere  intuition  as  its  object.     This  department  of  knowledge  con- 
nects our  intuitions  with  our  situations  and  relations ;  brings  the  results  of  those 
intuitions  into  agreement  with  our  duty  and  with  virtue ;  and,  both  by  the  con- 
straining force  of  its  progress  and  by  our  purposelessness  as  to  its  results,  a 
most  important  influence  upon  the  correctness,  completeness,  and  harmony  of 
our  views,  as  related  to  the  attainment  of  our  purpose,  intelligent  ideas. 

5.  Through  a  means  analogous  to  our  intuitional  knowledge ;  inasmuch  as  it 
instructs  us  in  the  properties  of  things  not  pertaining  properly  to  our  intuitions, 
but  in  which  we  perceive  a  similarity  to  things  which  we  know  by  our  intui- 
tions.    This  mode  of  intuition  enables  us  to  make   our  progress  in  knowl- 
edge, which,  as  a  result  of  actual  intuition,  is  only  the  work  of  the  five  senses, 
the  work  of  our  minds  and  of  all  their  powers ;  so  that  thus  we  enjoy  as  many 
kinds  of  intuition  as  we  have  powers  of  mind.     But  the  term  intuition,  in  this 
latter  sense,  has  a  more  extended  meaning  than  in  the  common  usage  of  lan- 
guage ;  and  includes  the  whole  range  of  feelings  which  are  by  nature  insepa- 
rable from  my  mind. 

It  is  important  to  be  acquainted  with  the  distinction  between  these  two  kinds 
of  intuitions ;  in  order  to  be  able  to  comprehend  the  rules  which  apply  to  each 
of  them. 

With  this  purpose,  I  return  to  the  course  of  my  discussion. 

From  the  consciousness  of  intuition  of  things  having  form,  comes  the  art  of 
geometry.  This  however  depends  upon  a  power  of  intuition  which  it  is 
important  to  distinguish  from  the  primary  means  of  knowledge,  as  well  as  from, 
the  mere  simple  intuition  of  things.  From  this  power  of  intuition  are  devel- 
oped all  the  departments  of  geometry  and  those  deduced  from  them.  But 
this  very  faculty  of  intuition  leads  us,  by  the  comparison  of  different  objects,  be- 
yond the  rules  of  surveying,  to  a  freer  imitation  of  the  relations  between  those 
objects — to  drawing;  and,  lastly,  we  make  use  of  the  art  of  drawing  in 
writing. 

GEOMETRY. 

This  presupposes  an  intuitional  ABC;  that  is,  the  power  of  simplifying  and 
defining  the  rules  of  geometry  by  the  accurate  distinction  of  all  the  dissimilari- 
ties which  come  before  the  intuition. 


204  PESTALOZZI— METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION. 

I  will  draw  attention  again  to  the  empirical  succession  which  led  me  to  my 
views  on  this  subject,  and  will  give  for  this  purpose  an  extract  from  my  Report. 

In  this  I  say,  "  Having  granted  the  principle  that  intuition  is  the  basis  of  all 
knowledge,  it  follows  irresistibly  that  correct  intuition  is  the  proper  basis  of  the 
most  correct  opinions. 

"  But  with  reference  to  the  method  of  education,  thorough  correctness  of  in- 
tuition is  evidently  a  result  of  measuring  the  subject  to  be  judged  of,  or  else  of 
a  faculty  of  perceiving  relations,  so  far  developed  as  to  make  such  measuring 
superfluous.  Thus  a  readiness  at  measuring  correctly  has,  in  education,  an  im- 
mediate relation  to  the  necessity  of  intuition.  Drawing  is  a  linear  definition  of 
forms,  whose  shape  and  contents  are  correctly  and  fully  defined  by  means  of  a 
developed  power  of  measuring. 

"  The  principle  that  practice  and  readiness  in  measuring  should  precede  prac- 
tice in  drawing,  or  at  least  must  keep  pace  with  it,  is  as  obvious  as  it  is  unused. 
But  the  process  of  our  methods  of  education  is,  to  begin  with  incorrect  seeing ; 
to  build  awry,  then  to  pull  down,  and  so  on  ten  times  over,  until  after  a  long 
time  the  sense  of  relations  becomes  developed,  and  then  at  last  we  come  to 
what  we  should  have  begun  with — to  measuring.  Such  is  the  proceeding  of 
our  methods,  and  yet  we  are  so  many  thousands  of  years  older  than  the  Egyp- 
tians and  Etruscans,  whose  drawings  all  depend  upon  a  trained  power  of  meas- 
uring, or  in  fact  were  at  bottom  nothing  than  measurings. 

"  And  now  the  question  comes  up,  By  what  means  is  the  child  to  be  trained 
to  this  basis  of  all  art,  the  right  meaning  of  objects  which  come  before  his  eyes  ? 
Evidently  by  a  succession  including  the  whole  of  all  possible  intuitions ;  and 
by  an  analysis  of  the  square,  according  to  simple,  certain,  and  definite  rules. 

"  Young  artists,  in  the  absence  of  such  elementary  exercises,  find  the  means, 
by  long  practice  in  their  art,  of  acquiring  greater  or  less  facility  in  so  placing 
any  object  before  their  eyes  and  imitating  it  as  it  is  in  nature.  And  it  can  not 
be  denied  that  many  of  them,  by  painful  and  long-continued  efforts,  have,  from 
the  most  confused  intuitions,  attained  to  a  sense  of  relations  so  far  advanced 
that  the  measuring  of  objects  is  superfluous  to  them.  But  then  each  individual 
had  a  different  system ;  none  of  them  had  any  nomenclature,  for  none  of  them 
had  any  distinct  conscious  comprehension  of  the  system ;  and,  accordingly,  they 
could  not  properly  communicate  it  to  their  scholars.  The  latter  were  thus  in 
the  same  condition  in  which  their  teachers  had  been,  and  were  obliged  to  attain 
the  same  result — correct  sense  of  relations — with  the  extremest  exertion  and 
by  long  practice,  and  with  their  own  means,  or  rather  with  no  means  at  all. 
Thus  art  remained  in  the  possession  of  a  few  fortunate  individuals,  who  had 
time  and  leisure  to  travel  by  such  an  incommodious  road  to  the  requisite  attain- 
ment. Art  could  not  be  considered  as  concerning  all  men,  nor  could  instruc- 
tion in  it  be  demanded  as  a  universal  right,  although  it  is  such.  At  least,  this 
can  not  be  denied  by  any  one  who  admits  that  it  is  the  right  of  living  men,  in 
an  enlightened  state,  to  be  able  to  learn  reading  and  writing ;  for  the  tenden- 
cies to  draw,  and  the  capacity  for  measuring,  develop  naturally  and  freely  in 
the  child ;  while  the  painstaking  efforts  which  must  be  made  in  order  to  bring 
him  to  spell  and  read,  must  be  applied  either  with  great  skill  or  with  harshness 
and  violence,  if  they  are  not  to  injure  him  more  than  reading  is  worth  to  him. 
And  drawing,  if  it  is  to  promote  the  aim  of  instruction,  the  attainment  of  intel- 
ligent ideas,  is  necessarily  connected  with  the  measuring  of  forms.  The  child 


PESTALOZZI.— METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION.  205 

before  whom  an  object  is  placed  to  be  drawn  before  he  can  represent  to  him- 
self its  proportions  in  their  whole  form,  and  express  himself  upon  it,  cau  never, 
make  the  art,  as  it  should  be,  an  actual  means  of  proceeding  from  obscure  intui- 
tions to  intelligent  ideas;  nor  procure  from  it  the  actual  substantial  advantage, 
throughout  his  whole  education  and  in  harmony  with  the  great  purpose  of  it, 
which  it  ought  to  and  can  afford  him." 

In  order  to  establish  the  art  of  drawing  upon  this  basis,  it  must  be  subordin- 
ated to  that  of  geometry ;  and  the  subdivisions  into  angles  and  curves  which 
proceed  from  the  rudimental  form  of  the  square,  as  well  as  the  divisions  of 
curves  by  straight  lines,  must  be  arranged  into  regularly  classified  geometrical 
forms.  This  has  been  done ;  and  I  believe  that  I  have  arranged  a  series  of  geo- 
metrical forms,  whose  use  will  as  much  facilitate  the  child's  acquisition  of  geom- 
etry, and  his  acquaintance  with  the  proportions  of  all  forms,  as  does  the  alpha- 
bet of  sounds  his  studies  in  language. 

This  intuitional  alphabet*  is  a  symmetrical  subdivision  of  an  equilateral  square 
into  fixed  geometrical  forms,  and  evidently  requires  a  knowledge  of  the  origin 
of  the  square ;  that  is,  of  horizontal  and  perpendicular  lines. 

The  subdivision  of  the  square  by  right  lines  produces  means  of  determining 
and  measuring  angles,  circles,  and  all  curves. 

This  is  brought  before  the  child  in  the  following  manner: — 

The  qualities  of  the  right  line  are  first  explained  to  him  by  itself  alone,  and 
drawn  in  various  arbitrary  directions;  until  a  variety  of  exercises  has  given 
him  a  clear  apprehension  of  it,  without  reference  to  any  ulterior  application. 
He  is  next  made  acquainted  with  right  lines,  as  horizontal,  perpendicular,  and 
oblique,  and  to  distinguish  them  as  inclining  or  extending  toward  the  right  or 
left ;  then  with  various  parallel  lines  and  their  names,  as  horizontal,  perpen- 
dicular, and  inclined  parallels;  then  with  the  names  of  the  different  varieties 
of  angles  formed  by  the  intersection  of  these  lines,  so  that  he  can  distinguish 
them  as  right,  acute,  and  obtuse  angles.  He  is  then  made  acquainted  with  the 
primitive  of  all  geometrical  forms,  the  equilateral  triangle,  which  is  formed  by 
the  junction  of  two  angles,  and  with  its  divisions  into  halves,  fourths,  sixths, 
&c. ;  and  then  with  the  circle  and  its  variations,  and  to  recognize  and  name 
them  and  their  forms. 

All  these  definitions  are  to  be  done  merely  by  the  power  of  the  eye ;  and  the 
names  of  the  geometrical  forms  are,  in  this  part  of  the  studies,  merely  square ; 
horizontal  and  perpendicular  quadrilateral,  or  rectangle;  circle,  semicircle, 
quarter-circle ;  first-oval,  half-oval,  and  quarter-oval ;  second,  third,  &c.,  oval ; 
and  thus  he  must  be  introduced  to  the  use  of  these  forms  as  means  of  geomet- 
rical study;  and  must  learn  the  nature  of  the  relations  by  which  they  are 
generated. 

*  I  should  here  observe  that  the  alphabet  of  intuition  is  the  indispensable  and  only  true 
means  of  instruction  in  judging  correctly  of  the  forms  of  all  things.  Yet  it  has  hitherto 
been  entirely  neglected,  until  it  is  entirely  unknown.  For  instruction  in  number  and  speech, 
on  the  contrary,  there  are  a  hundred  such  means.  But  this  want  of  means  of  instruction  in 
form  is  not  merely  a  simple  defect  in  the  system  of  education  to  human  knowledge — it  is 
also  a  breach  in  the  necessary  foundations  of  all  knowledge.  It  is  a  defect  of  knowledge 
upon  a  point  to  which  knowledge  of  number  and  speech  must  be  subordinated.  My  alpha- 
bet of  intuition  will  supply  this  serious  defect  in  instruction,  and  assure  the  basis  upon  which 
all  other  means  of  instruction  must  be  founded.  1  beg  such  Germans  as  may  be  inclined  to 
form  an  opinion  on  the  subject,  to  consider  this  position  as  the  basis  of  my  method  ;  upon 
whose  correctness  or  incorrectness  depends  the  value  or  worthlessness  of  all  my  researches. 


206  PE3TALOZZI.-METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION. 

The  first  means  of  reaching  these  results  is — 

1.  The  endeavor  to  teach  the  child  to  recognize  and  name  the  relations  of 
these  geometrical  forms. 

2.  To  enable  him  to  know  and  make  use  of  them  independently. 

Preparation  for  this  purpose  has  already  been  made  in  the  "Book  for  Moth- 
ers;'1'1 and  various  objects  set  before  him — triangular,  round,  oval,  wide,  long, 
and  narrow.  After  this,  various  detached  portions  of  the  alphabet  of  intuition 
are  set  before  him,  as  a  quadrilateral  in  quarters,  eighths,  sixths,  &c.,  and  cir- 
cles, and  half  and  quarter-circles,  ovals,  and  half  and  quarter-ovals ;  thus  furn- 
ishing him  in  advance  with  an  obscure  consciousness  of  the  clear  conception 
which  he  must  acquire  under  the  instruction  of  the  method,  and  the  subsequent 
application  of  these  forms.  He  is  also  prepared  for  this  conception  and  appli- 
cation in  the  "Book  for  Mothers"  in  which  are  given,  on  one  hand,  the  rudi- 
ments of  a  definite  nomenclature  for  these  forms,  and,  on  the  other,  the  com- 
mencement of  arithmetic,  which  presupposes  geometry. 

The  study  of  the  alphabet  of  intuition  will  lead  toward  the  same  end ;  for  in 
that  alphabet  speech  and  number,  the  means  before  used  for  attaining  an  ob- 
scure consciousness,  are  made  more  clearly  applicable  to  the  definite  aim  of 
geometry,  and  thus  the  pupil  will  gain  a  more  assured  power  of  expressing  him- 
self definitely  as  to  the  number  and  proportion  of  all  forms. 

3.  The  third  means  of  attaining  this  purpose  is  the  copying  of  forms  them- 
selves ;  by  means  of  which  the  children,  using  at  the  same  time  the  two  other 
means  above-mentioned,  will  generally  gain  not  only  intelligent  ideas  as  to  each 
form,  but  the  power  of  laying  off  each  form  with  certainty.     In  order  to  gain 
the  first  of  those  steps,  the  relations  of  the  forms  known  to  them  in  the  first 
course  as  horizontal  and  perpendicular  quadrilaterals,  are  now  to  be  brought  out 
by  teaching  them  that  "  Horizontal  quadrilateral,  two  are  twice  as  long  as  wide ; 
perpendicular  quadrilateral,  two  are  twice  as  high  as  wide,"  &c. ;  going  through 
all  the  parts  of  the  figure  also.     In  this  exercise,  also,  on  account  of  the  various 
directions  of  the  inclined  lines  of  some  quadrilaterals,  it  must  be  shown  that,  of 
the  horizontal  ones,  some  are  once  and  a  half  times  as  high  as  wide,  &c.,  until 
the  description  is  easy.     In  like  manner  are  to  be  studied  the  various  directions 
of  inclined  lines,  and  of  acute  and  obtuse  angles,  as  well  as  the  various  subdi- 
visions of  the  circle,  and  the  ovals  and  their  parts,  arising  from  the  subdivisions 
of  the  square. 

By  the  recognition  of  these  definite  forms,  the  geometrical  faculty  develops 
from  an  uncertain  natural  faculty  of  intuition  to  an  artistic  power  according  to 
definite  rules ;  from  which  comes  that  power  of  judging  correctly  of  the  rela- 
tions of  all  forms,  which  I  call  the  power  of  intuition.  This  is  a  new  power ; 
which  must  precede  the  former  usual  and  recognized  views  of  the  artistic  culti- 
vation of  our  powers,  as  their  common  and  actual  basis. 

By  means  of  it,  every  child  arrives,  in  the  simplest  manner,  at  the  power  of 
rightly  judging  of  every  object  in  nature  according  to  its  inner  relations,  and  its 
relations  to  other  objects ;  and  of  expressing  himself  with  distinctness  relatively 
to  it.  By  this  method  of  proceeding  he  becomes  able,  when  he  sees  any  figure, 
to  define  it  accurately,  not  only  as  to  the  proportion  between  hight  and  breadth, 
but  as  to  the  relations  of  every  variation  of  its  form  from  the  equilateral  tri- 
angle, in  curves  and  crooked  outlines;  and  to  apply  to  all  these  the  names  by 
which  these  variations  should  be  designated  in  the  alphabet  of  intuition.  The 


PESTALOZZI. -METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION.  207 

means  of  attaining  this  power  are  within  geometry  itself,  and  are  to  be  devel- 
oped still  further  by  drawing,  especially  by  linear  drawing ;  and  carried  to  such 
a  point,  that  his  power  of  definitely  measuring  objects,  with  such  a  degree  of 
skill  and  accuracy,  that  after  completing  his  course  of  elementary  (fxercises  he 
will  no  longer  need,  even  in  the  case  of  the  most  complicated  objects,  to  pro- 
ceed by  actual  geometrical  rules,  but  can  without  assistance  correctly  determine 
the  relations  of  all  their  parts  amongst  each  other,  and  express  himself  distinctly 
respecting  them. 

Even  children  of  inferior  capacity  attain  to  indescribably  great  results  by  the 
development  of  this  power.  This  assertion  is  no  dream.  I  have  taught  chil- 
dren on  these  principles ;  and  my  theory  on  this  subject  is  nothing  except  a  re- 
sult of  my  experience  upon  it.  Let  any  one  come  and  see  the  children.  They 
are  still  at  the  beginning  of  the  course,  but  their  beginning  has  carried  them  so 
far  that  it  must  be  a  very  extraordinary  kind  of  man  who  can  stand  by  and  not 
quickly  be  convinced ;  and  still  their  progress  is  by  no  means  extraordinary. 

DRAWING 

Is  the  ability  to  represent  to  one's  self,  in  similar  lines,  the  outlines  of  any 
object  and  what  is  contained  within  them,  by  means  of  merely  looking  at  the 
object,  and  thus  to  imitate  it  correctly. 

This  art  is  facilitated  out  of  all  measure  by  the  new  method,  since  it  is, 
throughout,  an  easy  application  of  forms  which  have  not  only  been  brought  be- 
fore the  intuition  of  the  child,  but  by  practice  in  imitating  which  he  has  ac- 
quired actual  geometrical  ability. 

The  mode  pursued  is  as  follows : — As  soon  as  the  child  can  correctly  and 
readily  draw  the  straight  horizontal  lines  with  which  the  alphabet  of  intuition 
begins,  there  are  sought  for  him,  out  of  the  chaos  of  intuitions,  figures  whose 
outline  requires  nothing  but  the  application  of  the  horizontal  lines  which  are 
already  easy  to  him,  or  at  most  only  a  not  noticeable  departure  from  them. 

Then  we  proceed  to  the  perpendicular  line,  and  then  to  the  right-angled  trian- 
gle, &c. ;  and,  in  proportion  as  the  child  is  more  assured  in  the  simple  application  of 
these  forms,  we  gradually  pass  from  them  to  the  application  of  them.  The  results 
of  the  application  of  this  rule,  entirely  coincident  with  the  essence  of  physico- 
mechanical  laws,  are  no  less  in  drawing  than  are  those  of  the  use  of  the  alpha- 
bet of  intuition  upon  the  geometrical  powers  of  the  child.  In  this  course  they 
become  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  first  elements  of  drawing  before  going 
further ;  and  accordingly,  even  in  the  first  stages  of  their  progress,  there  is  de- 
veloped in  them  a  perception  of  what  the  consequences  of  the  thorough  mas- 
tery of  the  whole  subject  will  be,  and  with  this  an  endeavor  after  perfection, 
and  a  perseverance  in  the  attainment  of  their  object,  such  as  the  foolishness 
and  disorderliness  of  the  usual  methods  would  never  produce.  The  basis  of 
this  progress  is  not  merely  in  the  cultivation  of  the  hand ;  it  is  founded  upon 
the  innermost  powers  of  human  nature ;  and  practical  books  of  geometrical 
forms  coming  in  succession  afterward,  enable  the  children,  pursuing  this  course 
on  correct  psychological  principles,  and  under  the  proper  conditions  of  physico- 
mechanical  laws,  gradually  to  attain  the  desired  point,  namely,  that  the  fur- 
ther use  of  geometrical  lines  to  be  employed  by  the  eye  shall  gradually  become 
entirely  superfluous,  and  that,  of  the  means  of  attaining  their  art,  nothing  shall 
remain  but  the  art  itself. 


208  PESTALOZZI.— METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION. 

WRITING. 

Nature  herself  subordinates  this  art  to  drawing,  and  to  all  the  means  by 
which  the  latter  is  taught  to  the  child  and  carried  to  perfection;  and,  accord- 
ingly, is  actually  and  especially  subordinate  to  geometry. 

Writing  ought,  even  still  less  than  drawing,  to  be  begun  and  pursued  without 
previous  training  in  linear  geometry;  not  only  because  it  is  itself  a  kind  of  lin- 
ear drawing,  and  does  not  allow  arbitrary  variations  from  the  fixed  lines  of  its 
forms,  but  more  particularly  because,  if  facility  is  acquired  in  it  before  drawing, 
it  must  necessarily  injure  the  hand  for  the  latter,  by  confirming  it  in  particular 
forms  before  it  has  been  sufficiently  trained  to  a  universal  capacity  for  all  forms, 
euch  as  drawing  requires.  It  is  another  reason  why  drawing  should  precede 
writing,  that  it  beyond  measure  facilitates  the  proper  formation  of  the  letters  by 
the  child,  thus  saving  him  a  great  loss  of  time  spent  in  weaning  himself  from 
wrong  forms  which  he  has  been  acquiring  for  years  together.  This,  again,  is 
of  advantage  to  him  during  his  whole  course,  in  that,  even  in  the  first  begin- 
nings of  study,  he  becomes  conscious  of  the  power  to  be  acquired  by  the  mas- 
tery of  it ;  so  that,  even  in  the  first  part  of  his  studies  in  writing,  he  becomes 
resolved  not  to  leave  any  thing  incomplete  or  imperfect,  in  his  rudimentary 
acquirements. 

Writing,  like  drawing,  must  be  first  commenced  on  the  slate,  with  a  pencil ; 
children  being  competent  to  make  a  perfect  letter  on  the  slate,  at  an  ago 
When  it  would  be  infinitely  difficult  to  teach  them  how  to  guide  the  pen. 

This  use  of  the  slate-pencil  before  the  pen  is  to  be  recommended,  both  in 
writing  and  drawing,  for  the  additional  reason  that  it  admits  of  the  easy  recti- 
fication of  errors ;  while,  by  the  remaining  on  the  paper  of  a  faulty  letter,  a 
worse  one  is  always  made  next. 

And  I  shall  cite,  as  a  material  advantage  of  this  method,  that  the  child  will 
wash  from  the  slate  even  perfectly  good  work ;  an  advantage  incredible  to  all 
who  do  not  know  the  importance  of  educating  children  without  presumption, 
and  so  as  to  prevent  them  from  vanity  in  attaching  value  to  the  work  of  their 
hands. 

1  divide  the  study  of  writing  into  two  epochs : — 

1.  That  in  which  the  child  is  to  become  familiar  with  the  forms  of  letters  and 
their  connection,  independently  of  the  use  of  the  pen ;  and 

2.  That  in  which  his  hand  is  to  be  trained  to  the  use  of  the  pen,  the  proper 
instrument  for  writing. 

During  the  first  of  these  epochs  I  place  the  letters  before  the  child,  in  strictly 
correct  forms ;  and  have  caused  a  copy-book  to  be  engraved,  by  means  of  which 
the  child,  if  he  has  the  advantages  consequent  upon  pursuing  my  whole  meth- 
od, can  acquire  facility  in  writing  almost  by  himself  without  assistance. 

The  characteristics  of  this  writing-book  are : — 

1.  It  dwells  sufficiently  long  upon  the  rudimentary  and  fundamental  forms  of 
the  letters. 

2  It  proceeds  gradually,  only  from  the  simple  forms  of  the  letters  to  the 
complex. 

3.  It  practices  the  child  in  the  combination  of  several  letters,  beginning  from 
the  moment  when  he  can  correctly  write  a  simple  one ;  and  goes  on,  step  by 
step,  in  the  writing  of  such  words  as  contain  those  letters  only  which  he  is 
already  able  to  make  perfectly. 


PESTALOZZI.-METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION.  209 

4.  Lastly,  it  has  the  advantage  of  being  cut  up  into  single  lines ;  so  that  the 
line  to  be  written  upon  can  always  be  made  to  stand  immediately  under  the 
copy. 

In  the  second  epoch,  in  which  the  child  is  to  be  introduced  to  the  use  of  the 
pen,  the  proper  instrument  for  writing,  he  is  practiced  in  the  forms  of  the  let- 
ters and  in  their  combinations,  even  to  a  higher  degree  of  perfection ;  and  the 
teacher's  work  is  then  only  to  apply  this  perfected  skill  in  drawing  these  forms 
to  writing  proper,  by  the  use  of  the  pen. 

But  the  child  must  here  also  come  at  the  new  step  in  his  progress  with  those 
he  has  already  made.  His  first  copy  for  the  pen  is  precisely  like  his  copy  for 
the  pencil ;  and  he  must  commence  his  practice  with  the  pen  by  writing  the 
letters  as  large  as  he  drew  them,  and  only  gradually  becoming  accustomed  to 
imitating  the  smaller  usual  forms  of  writing. 

The  psychology  of  all  departments  of  education  requires  a  clear  distinction  to 
be  preserved  between  their  means ;  and  a  keen  discrimination  as  to  which  of 
them  the  child  can  and  should  be  made  to  practice  at  any  age.  As  in  all  de- 
partments, I  apply  this  principle  in  writing  also ;  and  by  a  steady  adherence  to 
this  principle,  and  with  the  help  of  the  book  of  slate-pencil  copies  founded  on 
it,  which  has  been  prepared  for  children  of  four  and  five  years  of  age,  I  confi- 
dently assert  that  by  this  method  even  an  unskillful  schoolmaster,  or  a  very 
inexperienced  mother,  can  instruct  children,  up  to  a  certain  point,  in  both  plain 
and  ornamental  writing,  without  having  themselves  been  previously  able  to  do 
it.  It  is,  in  this  particular,  as  every  where,  the  main  design  of  my  method  to 
make  home  instruction  again  possible  to  our  neglected  people ;  and  to  enable 
every  mother,  whose  heart  beats  for  her  child,  to  follow  my  elementary  exer- 
cises in  a  progressive  order,  quite  to  their  end ;  and  to  practice  them  through- 
out with  her  children.  To  do  this,  she  need  be  but  a  little  way  forward  of  the 
child  itself. 

'My  heart  is  lifted  up  by  the  blessed  wishes  that  spring  from  this  idea.  But 
when  I  first  expressed  distantly  something  of  these  hopes,  I  was  answered,  from 
all  sides,  "The  mothers  among  the  people  at  large  will  not  approve  of  it;  "  and 
not  only  men  from  the  common  people,  but  men  who  teach  the  common  peo- 
ple— who  teach  them  Christianity! — said  to  me,  scoffingly,  "You  may  search 
all  our  villages  up  and  down,  but  you  will  find  no  mother  who  will  do  what 
you  require  from  her."  I  answered  them,  "  Then  I  will,  by  the  use  of  these 
means  of  mine,  enable  heathen  mothers  from  the  furthest  north  to  do  it ;  and, 
if  it  is  really  true  that  Christian  mothers  in  peaceful  Europe — that  Christian 
mothers  in  my  fatherland — can  not  be  carried  forward  as  far  as  I  will  carry 
heathen  mothers  from  the  wild  north; — then  I  will  call  upon  these  gentlemen, 
who  are  to-day  thus  insulting  the  people  of  the  fatherland,  whom  they  and 
their  fathers  have  hitherto  taught,  instructed,  and  directed ;  and,  if  they  dare 
wash  their  hands  of  the  blame,  and  say,  "  "We  are  guiltless  of  this  inexpressible 
shame  of  the  people  in  peaceful  Europe,  we  are  guiltless  of  this  unspeakable 
disgrace  of  the  best  natured,  most  teachable,  and  patient  of  all  the  European 
nations,  the  Swiss" — if  they  dare  say,  ""We  and  our  fathers  have  done 
what  it  was  our  duty  to  do,  in  order  to  remove  from  our  father-land  the  name- 
less unhappiness  of  this  inhuman  condition  of  our  country  and  our  father-land, 
to  prevent  this  decay  of  the  first  foundations  of  morality  and  religion  in  our 
country  and  our  father-land  " — to  these  men.  who  dared  to  tell  me,  "  You  may 

29 


210  PESTALOZZI.-METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION. 

search  the  land  up  and  down,  but  its  mothers  will  not  do  nor  desire  what  you 
wish,"  I  will  reply,  "Cry  out  to  these  unnatural  mothers  of  our  father-land,  as 
did  Christ  to  Jerusalem,  'Mothers,  mothers,  how  often  have  we  wished  to 
gather  you  under  the  wings  of  wisdom,  humanity,  and  Christianity,  as  a  hen 
gathers  her  chickens  under  her  wings,  and  ye  would  not! '"  If  they  dare  do 
this,  then  I  .will  be  silent,  and  believe  their  assertion  and  their  experience,  in- 
stead of  believing  in  the  mothers  of  the  country,  and  in  the  hearts  which  God 
has  put  into  their  breasts.  But  if  they  dare  not,  I  will  not  believe  in  them,  but  in 
the  mothers,  and  in  the  hearts  which  God  has  put  in  their  breasts ;  and  will 
moreover  meet  the  miserable  statement  with  which  they  have  rejected  from 
themselves  the  people  of  the  land,  like  the  production  of  an  evil  creation,  and 
proclaim  it  an  insult  to  the  people,  to  nature,  and  to  truth ;  and  will  go  my  way, 
like  a  wanderer  who  in  a  distant  forest  hears  a  wind  whose  blowing  he  does  not 
feel.  I  must  go  my  way,  for  the  sake  of  what  I  desire  to  speak.  I  have  all 
my  life  seen  all  manner  of  such  word-men,  hardened  in  systems  and  ideals,  with 
no  knowledge  or  respect  for  the  people ;  and  the  appearance  of  those  who  to- 
day are,  as  I  have  shown,  insulting  the  people,  is  more  similar  to  theirs  than 
any  other  that  I  know.  Such  men  believe  themselves  to  be  upon  an  eminence, 
and  the  people  at  a  depth  far  below  them ;  but  they  are  mistaken  on  both 
points,  and  like  wretched  apes,  by  the  arrogance  of  their  miserable  nature,  hin- 
dered and  made  incapable  of  right  judgment  on  the  real  value  of  actual  animal 
power,  or  that  of  real  human  endowments ;  thus  these  wretched  word-men  are, 
even  by  the  loftiest  attainments  of  their  unnatural  course,  become  incapable  of 
observing  that  they  are  walking  on  stilts,  and  that  they  must  get  down  from 
their  wretched  wooden  legs,  in  order  to  be  planted  as  firmly  as  common  people 
are,  upon  God's  earth.  I  am  forced  to  pity  them.  I  have  heard  many  of  these 
wretched  word-men  say,  with  such  a  mixture  of  nun-like  innocence  and  rabbin- 
ical wisdom,  "  "What  can  be  better  for  the  people  than  the  Heidelberg  cate- 
chism and  the  psalter  ?  "  that  I  have  been  forced,  out  of  consideration  for  hu- 
manity, to  give  up  my  respect  for  even  the  foundation  of  this  error.  And  even 
if  I  would  excuse  the  error,  it  would  still  be  an  error,  and  will  be.  Men  are 
ever  like  themselves ;  and  book -learned  men,  and  their  pupils,  have  likewise 
been  so.  I  will  therefore  open  my  mouth  no  longer  against  the  verbiage  of 
their  human  sayings,  and  the  tinkling  bells  of  their  ceremoniousness,  and  the 
delightful  foolish  frame  of  mind  which  must  naturally  thence  arise ;  but  will 
only  say,  with  that  greatest  of  men,  who  ever  beneficially  advocated  the  cause 
of  truth,  the  people,  and  love,  against  the  errors  of  the  book-learned,  "  Lord, 
forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do." 

But  to  return :  The  study  of  writing  seems  to  appear,  in  the  third  place,  as  an 
introduction  to  learning  speech.  It  is,  indeed,  essentially,  nothing  but  a  pecu- 
liar and  special  application  of  the  latter. 

As,  therefore,  writing,  considered  as  a  study  of  form,  comes  according  to  my 
method  into  connection  with  geometry  and  drawing,  and  thus  enjoys  all  the  ad- 
vantages derivable  from  the  early  development  of  those  studies,  so,  as  a  special 
department  of  the  study  of  speech,  it  comes  into  connection  with  all  that  has 
been  done,  from  the  cradle  upward,  by  the  method  for  the  development  of  that 
faculty,  and  enjoys  the  same  advantages  which  were  secured  and  established- 
for  it,  from  the  previous  training  of  it  by  the  " Book  for  Mothers"  and  the  spell- 
ing and  reading-book. 


PESTALOZZI.— METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION.  211 

A  child  taught  by  this  method  knows  the  spelling-book  and  the  first  reading- 
book  almost  by  rote ;  he  knows,  to  a  great  extent,  the  basis  of  orthography 
and  speech ;  and  when  he  has  acquired  facility  in  the  forms  of  writing,  by  means 
of  the  pencil-book  and  the  first  exercises,  so  far  as  concern  single  letters  and 
their  connection,  he  will  need  no  special  copies  to  proceed  in  his  studies  in  writ- 
ing, for  he  will  then,  by  means  of  his  knowledge  of  speech  and  orthography, 
have  the  substance  of  all  the  copies  in  his  head,  and  can  write  down,  from  the  ac- 
quaintance he  has  acquired  with  the  spelling  and  reading-books,  whole  series 
of  words ;  by  which  Ms  knowledge  of  language  is  continually  increased,  and 
his  memory  and  imagination  trained. 

The  advantages  of  exercises  in  writing  thus  arranged,  and  connected  with 
those  in  language,  are  as  follows: — 

1.  They  continually  increase  the  grammatical  facility  which  the  child  has 
already  acquired,  and  make  its  basis  in  his  mind  more  firm.     This  can  not  fail 
to  be  the  case ;  for  the  arrangement  of  the  reading-book,  in  which  nouns,  ad- 
verbs, verbs,  conjunctions,  &c.,  stand  in  separate  columns,  enables  him  to  write 
them  down  as  they  stand ;  by  which  means  he  acquires  the  power  of  determ- 
ining at  once  in  which  series  any  word  belongs  that  comes  before  him.     In  this 
manner  even  the  rules  applicable  to  these  classes  of  words  will  shape  them- 
selves in  his  mind. 

2.  By  these  exercises  in  language,  according  to  the  method,  is  also  cultivated 
the  general  power  of  arriving  at  intelligent  ideas ;  for  the  child  may,  as  a  writ- 
ing-exercise, write  out  his  dictionary,  according  to  the  headings  and  distinctions 
of  the  series  of  subdivisions  which  he  has  already  learned,  into  groups  of  words, 
and  thus  arrange  for  himself  orderly,  generalized  views  of  the  various  classes  of 
things. 

3.  The  means  of  gradually  attaining  to  intelligent  ideas  by  writing-exercises 
are  re-enforced  in  two  ways :  first,  because  the  pupil  gains  practice  both  by  the 
writing  and  reading-lessons,  through  the  elucidatory  juxtapositions  of  the  im- 
portant nouns,  verbs,  adverbs,  &c. ;  and,  second,  he  gains  independent  power  in 
discovering  and  adding  the  ideas  derived  from  his  own  experience  to  the  various 
series  of  terms  whose  chief  conceptions  he  has  made  his  own  while  engaged 
in  studying  reading. 

Thus,  in  the  writing-exercises,  for  example,  he  sets  down  not  only  the  names 
of  what  he  has  learned  in  the  reading-book  to  call  "high"  and  "pointed,"  but 
he  practices  himself,  and  the  very  task  stimulates  him  to  do  so,  in  remembering 
and  adding  such  objects  as  he  recollects,  within  his  own  experience,  of  that 
form. 

I  will  give  an  example,  to  illustrate  the  investigating  spirit  of  children  as  to 
such  additions. 

I  gave  out  to  them  the  word  "  Three-cornered ;"  of  which,  along  with  a 
country  schoolmaster,  they  furnished  the  following  instances : — 

Three-cornered  :  Triangle  ;  plumb-level ;  half  a  neck-cloth  ;  carpenter's  square ; 
a  kind  of  tile ;  bayonet;  prism;  beech-nut;  engraver's  scraper;  wound  left  by 
leech  ;  blade  of  a  sword-cane  ;  buckwheat  kernel ;  leg  of  a  pair  of  dividers  ;  the 
under  surface  of  the  nose;  leaf  of  "Good  Henry;"  spinach  leaf;  seecl-pod  of 
tulip  ;  figure  4  ;  seed-pod  of  shepherd's  pouch. 

They  found  still  others  on  tables,  and  in  round  windows,  which  they  were 
unable  to  give  names  for. 

The  like  is  the  case  with  reference  to  the  addition  of  adjectives  to  the  nouns. 


212  PESTALOZZI. -METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION. 

For  instance,  the  children  annexed  to  the  nouns  eel,  egg,  evening,  not  only  all 
the  adjectives  which  they  had  learned  as  annexed  to  them  in  the  reading-book, 
but  those  also  which  their  own  experience  enabled  them  to  add  as  appropriate. 
Thus,  by  this  mode  of  collecting  the  qualities  of  all  things,  they  arrive,  by  the 
simplest  of  processes,  at  the  means  of  becoming  acquainted  and  familiar  with 
the  nature,  essence,  and  qualities  of  all  things,  from  various  directions,  and  in 
a  mode  harmonizing  with  their  own  experience.  The  same  is  true  of  verbs ; 
as,  for  instance,  if  the  children  are  to  elucidate  the  verb  "to  observe,"  by  ad- 
ding nouns  and  adverbs  to  it,  they  would  elucidate  or  accompany  them,  not 
only  with  the  words  which  they  had  found  accompanying  them  in  the  reading- 
book,  but  would  add  others,  as  in  the  previous  case. 

The  consequences  of  these  exercises  are  far-reaching.  The  descriptions 
which  the  children  have  learned  by  rote,  as  of  the  bell,  going,  standing,  lying, 
the  eye,  the  ear,  &c.,  become  definite  and  universal  guides  to  them,  by  means 
of  which  they  become  able  to  express  themselves,  both  orally  and  in  writing, 
as  to  every  thing  with  whose  form  and  contents  they  become  acquainted.  It 
will  of  course  be  observed,  that  this  result  can  be  reached,  not  by  isolated,  ex- 
clusive practice  in  writing,  but  by  connecting  it  with  the  whole  series  of  means 
by  which  the  method  gradually  elevates  its  pupils  to  the  attainment  of  intelli- 
gent ideas. 

It  is  also,  as  standing  in  connection  with  the  whole  course  of  instruction,  that 
I  say  of  the  study  of  writing,  that  it  should  be  completed,  not  merely  as  an  art, 
but  as  a  business  acquirement ;  and  that  the  child  should  be  carried  to  such  a 
degree  of  facility  in  it,  that  he  shall  be  able  to  express  himself  as  distinctly 
respecting  it,  and  use  it  as  easily  and  as  universally,  as  speaking. 

The  third  elementary  means  of  our  knowledge  is 

NUMBER. 

While  sound  and  form  lead  us  toward  the  intelligence  of  ideas,  and  the  intel- 
lectual independence  which  are  attained  through  them,  by  the  use  of  various 
means  of  instruction  subordinate  to  themselves,  arithmetic  is  the  only  depart- 
ment of  instruction  which  makes  use  of  no  such  subordinate  means,  but  seems, 
throughout  the  whole  extent  of  its  influence,  to  be  only  a  simple  result  of  the 
primitive  faculty,  by  which  we  represent  clearly  to  ourselves,  in  all  cases  of  in- 
tuition, the  relations  of  greater  and  less,  and,  in  cases  where  measurement  is 
impossible,  to  form  a  perfectly  clear  idea  of  the  relation. 

Sound  and  form  often,  and  in  various  ways,  contain  within  themselves  a  germ 
of  error  and  delusion ;  but  number,  never :  it  alone  leads  to  infallible  results ; 
and,  if  geometry  makes  the  same  claim,  it  can  be  only  by  means  of  the  applica- 
tion of  arithmetic,  and  in  conjunction  with  it ;  that  is,  it  is  infallible,  as  long  as 
it  arithmeticizes. 

Since,  therefore,  this  department  of  instruction,  which  leads  with  most  cer- 
tainty toward  the  purpose  of  all  instruction — intelligent  ideas — must  be  hon- 
ored as  the  most  important  of  all  the  departments,  it  is  therefore  evident  that  it 
must  also  be  pursued  universally,  and  with  the  utmost  care  and  wisdom  ;  and 
that  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  for  the  attainment  of  the  ultimate  object  of 
education ;  and  also  that  it  should  be  put  in  a  form  which  shall  admit  all  the 
advantages  which  a  profound  psychology  and  a  most  comprehensive  knowledge 
of  the  invariable  laws  of  the  physical  mechanism  of  instruction  can  secure.  I 


PESTALOZZI.— METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION.  213 

have,  therefore,  made  the  utmost  efforts  to  bring  arithmetic  before  the  intuition 
of  the  child,  as  the  clearest  result  of  these  laws ;  and  not  only  to  reduce  the 
element  of  it  in  the  mind  to  that  simplicity  which  they  wear  in  the  actual  phe- 
nomena of  nature,  but  also  to  preserve  this  same  simplicity  without  any  varia- 
tion, strictly  and  without  exception,  in  every  step  of  onward  progress ;  in  the 
conviction  that  even  the  furthest  attainments  in  this  study  can  only  be  the 
means  of  true  enlightenment — that  is,  means  of  attaining  to  intelligent  ideas 
and  correct  views — so  far  as  it  is  developed  in  the  human  mind  in  the  same 
order  of  progress  in  which  it  proceeds  from  nature  herself,  from  the  very 
beginning. 

ARITHMETIC. 

This  arises  wholly  from  the  simple  collocation  and  separation  of  several  uni- 
ties. Its  primitive  formula  is  evidently  as  has  been  stated.  One  and  one  make 
two,  and  one  from  two  leaves  one.  Every  figure,  whatever  its  value,  is  in 
itself  only  a  mode  of  abbreviating  this  rudimentary  form  of  all  computation. 
It  is,  however,  important  that  the  recollection  of  the  primitive  form  of  the  rela- 
tions of  numbers  should  not  be  weakened  in  the  mind  by  the  abbreviated 
means  of  arithmetic;  but  that  they  should,  by  means  of  the  forms  in  which  the 
study  is  pursued,  be  carefully  and  deeply  impressed  upon  it;  and  that  all  prog- 
ress in  this  department  toward  the  end  proposed  should  be  founded  upon  that 
deeply-seated  consciousness  of  the  material  relations,  which  lies  at  the  basis  of 
all  arithmetic.  If  this  does  not  happen,  the  very  first  means  of  attaining 
intelligent  ideas  would  be  degraded  to  a  mere  plan  of  memory  and  imagination, 
and  thus  made  powerless  for  its  real  object. 

This  must,  of  course,  be  the  case ;  for  if,  for  instance,  we  learn  by  rote  that 
three  and  four  are  seven,  and  then  proceed  to  use  this  seven  as  if  we  really 
knew  that  three  and  four  made  it,  we  should  deceive  ourselves ;  for  the  inner 
truth  of  the  seven  would  not  be  in  us,  since  we  should  not  be  conscious  of  the 
material  basis  which  alone  can  give  the  empty  words  any  truth  for  us.  The 
fact  is  the  same  in  all  the  departments  of  human  knowledge.  Drawing,  in  like 
manner,  if  not  based  upon  the  geometry  from  which  it  is  deduced,  loses  that 
internal  truthfulness,  by  means  of  which  only  it  can  lead  us  toward  intelligent 
ideas. 

I  begin,  in  the  "  Book  for  Mothers"  to  endeavor  to  make  upon  the  child  that 
firm  impression  of  the  relations  of  numbers,  as  such  actual  interchanges  of  more 
and  less,  as  may  be  observed  in  objects  discernible  by  the  eye.  The  first  tables 
of  that  work  contain  a  series  of  objects  intended  to  bring  distinctly  before  the 
eyes  of  the  children  the  ideas  of  one,  two,  three,  &c.,  up  to  ten.  Then  I  let  the 
children  select  from  the  pictures  the  objects  which  represent  one;  then  the 
twos,  threes,  &c.  Then  I  make  the  same  relations  familiar  to  them  by  their 
fingers,  or  with  peas,  small  stones,  or  such  other  objects  as  may  be  at  hand ; 
and  I  daily  renew  the  consciousness  of  the  numbers  hundreds  and  hundreds  of 
times,  by  the  division  of  words  into  syllables  and  letters  on  the  spelling-board, 
and  asking,  How  many  syllables  has  that  word?  What  is  the  first?  The  sec- 
ond? &c.  In  this  manner  the  primitive  form  of  all  arithmetic  becomes  deeply 
impressed  upon  the  children's  minds,  by  which  means  they  become  familiar 
with  the  means  of  abbreviating  it,  by  figures,  with  the  full  consciousness  of 
their  inner  truth,  before  proceeding  to  the  use  of  the  figures  without  keeping  this 
background  of  intuition  before  their  eyes.  Aside  from  the  advantage  of  thus 


214  PESTALOZZI.-METIIODS  OF  INSTRUCTION. 

making  arithmetic  a  basis  for  intelligent  ideas,  it  is  incredible  how  easy  the 
study  thus  becomes,  even  to  children,  through  this  assured  preparation  of  the  in- 
tuition ;  and  experience  shows  that  the  beginning  even  is  difficult  only  because 
this  psychological  rule  is  not  used  to  the  proper  extent.  I  must,  therefore,  go 
somewhat  more  into  detail  upon  such  of  my  rules  as  are  here  applicable. 

Besides  the  steps  already  mentioned,  and  after  them,  I  make  use  of  the  spell- 
ing-tablets also  as  a  means  of  teaching  arithmetic.  I  call  each  tablet  one,  and 
begin  with  the  child  at  a  time  when  it  can  learn  its  letters,  to  instruct  it  in  the 
knowledge  of  the  relations  of  numbers.  I  lay  down  one  tablet,  and  ask  the 
child,  "Are  there  many  tablets?"  He  answers,  "No;  only  one."  Then  I 
put  one  more,  and  say,  "  One  and  one.  How  many  is  it?  "  The  child  answers, 
"  One  and  one  are  two."  And  so  I  go  on,  adding  only  one  at  a  time,  then  two. 
three,  &c.,  at  a  time. 

When  the  child  has  thoroughly  mastered  the  combinations  of  one  and  one,  as 
far  as  ten,  and  states  them  with  entire  facility,  I  put  the  spelling-tablets  before 
him  in  the  same  manner,  but  vary  the  question,  and  say,  "  If  you  have  two 
tablets,  how  many  times  one  tablet  have  you  ?  "  The  child  sees,  reckons,  and 
answers  correctly,  "  If  I  have  two  tablets,  I  have  twice  one  tablet." 

When  he  has  thus,  by  the  limited  and  often-repeated  computation  of  their 
parts,  gained  a  clear  understanding  of  the  number  of  ones  in  each  of  the  first 
numbers,  the  question  is  varied  again,  and  he  is  asked,  with  the  tablets  in  sight 
as  before,  "  How  many  times  one  are  two  ?  how  many  times  one  are  three  ?  " 
&c. ;  and  again,  " How  many  times  is  one  in  two;  in  three ?"&c.  When  the 
child  has  thus  become  acquainted  with  the  simplest  rudimentary  forms  of  addi- 
tion, multiplication,  and  division,  and  intuition  has  enabled  him  to  master  the 
essence  of  the  processes,  the  next  step  is  to  make  him  thoroughly  acquainted, 
in  like  manner,  by  intuition,  with  the  rudimentary  forms  of  subtraction.  This 
is  done  as  follows : — From  the  whole  ten  tablets  together  I  take  away  one,  and 
ask,  "If  you  take  away  one  from  ten,  how  many  remains?  "  The  child  reck- 
ons, finds  nine,  and  answers,  "  If  I  take  one  away  from  ten,  there  remain  nine." 
Then  I  take  away  another,  and  ask,  "  One  less  than  nine  is  how  many?  "  The 
child  reckons  again,  finds  nine,  and  answers,  "One  less  than  nine  is  eight." 
And  so  it  proceeds  to  the  end. 

This  mode  of  explaining  arithmetic  can  be  practiced  by  means  of  the  follow- 
ing series  of  figures  : — 

1  11  11  11  &c. 
1  111  111  111  &c. 
1  1111  1111  1111  &c. 

When  the  additions  in  one  of  these  columns  are  finished,  they  may  be  used 
for  subtraction ;  e.  g. : —  , 

If  one  and  two  are  three,  and  two  and  three  make  five,  and  two  and  five 
make  seven,  &c.,  up  to  twenty-one ;  then  two  tablets  may  be  removed,  and  the 
question  asked,  "  Two  less  than  twenty-one  is  how  many  ?  "  and  so  on,  until 
none  are  left. 

The  knowledge  of  the  greater  or  less  number  of  objects,  which  is  awakened 
in  the  child  by  the  laying  before  him  of  actual  movable  bodies,  is  strengthened 
again  by  the  use  of  arithmetical  tables,  by  means  of  which  the  same  succes- 
sions of  relations  are  set  before  him  in  lines  and  points.  These  tables  are  used 
as  guides,  in  reference  to  computing  with  real  objects,  as  the  spelling-book  is  in 


PESTALOZZI.-METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION.  £15 

connection  with  writing  words  on  the  blackboard ;  and  when  the  child  has  pro- 
ceeded  as  far,  in  reckoning  with  real  objects,  as  these  tables,  which  are  entirely 
based  on  intuition,  his  apprehension  of  the  actual  relations  of  numbers  will 
have  become  so  strengthened,  that  the  abbreviated  modes  of  proceeding  by  the 
usual  figures,  even  without  the  intuition  of  objects,  will  be  incredibly  easy  to 
him,  while  his  mind  will  have  been  preserved  from  error,  defects,  and  fanciful 
instructions.  Thus  it  may  be  said,  with  strict  correctness,  that  such  a  study  of 
arithmetic  is  exclusively  an  exercise  of  the  reason,  and  not  at  all  of  the  memo- 
ry, nor  any  mechanical  routine  practice ;  but  the  result  of  the  clearest  and  most 
definite  intuitions,  and  leading  to  nothing  except  to  intelligent  ideas. 

But  as  increase  and  decrease  takes  place,  not  only  by  increase  and  decrease 
of  the  number  of  single  objects,  but  by  the  division  of  single  objects  into  sev- 
eral parts,  there  thus  arises  a  second  form  of  arithmetic,  or,  rather,  a  method  is 
offered  by  which  each  single  object  may  itself  be  made  the  basis  of  an  infinite 
partition  of  itself,  and  an  infinite  division  into  single  parts  existing  within  it. 

And  as,  in  the  previous  form  of  arithmetic,  the  number  one  was  taken  as  the 
starting-point  for  the  increase  and  decrease  in  the  number  of  single  objects,  and 
as  the  basis  of  the  intuitional  knowledge  of  all  their  changes,  in  like  manner  a 
figure  must  be  found  in  the  second  form  of  arithmetic  which  shall  occupy  the 
same  place.  It  must  be  infinitely  divisible,  and  all  its  parts  alike ;  a  figure  by 
which  the  parts  in  fractional  arithmetic,  each  first  as  part  of  a  whole,  and  again 
as  independent,  undivided  unities,  may  be  brought  before  the  intuition  in  such 
a  way  that  every  relation  of  a  fraction  to  its  integer  may  be  presented  to  the 
child's  eye  as  definitely  and  accurately  as,  by  our  method,  in  the  simple  form 
of  arithmetic,  the  number  one  was  seen  by  him  to  be  distinctly  contained  three 
times  in  three. 

No  figure  will  serve  this  purpose  except  the  equilateral  square. 

By  means  of  this  figure  we  can  place  before  the  eye  of  the  child  the  relation 
of  the  parts  to  unity ;  that  is,  the  progressive  series  of  fractions,  beginning  with 
the  universal  starting-point  of  all  increase  and  decrease,  the  number  one,  with 
as  much  distinctness  as  we  formerly  set  before  him  in  a  sensible  form  the  in- 
crease and  decrease  of  whole  unities.  I  have  also  prepared  an  intuitional  table 
of  fractions,  in  eleven  columns,  each  consisting  of  ten  squares.  The  squares  in 
the  first  column  are  whole,  those  in  the  second  are  divided  into  two  equal  parts, 
those  in  the  third  into  three,  &c.,  as  far  as  ten.  This  simply-divided  table  is 
followed  by  a  second,  in  which  these  simple  intuitional  divisions  are  continued 
in  a  further  progression.  The  squares,  which  in  the  first  table  are  divided  into 
two  equal  parts,  are  now  divided  into  two,  four,  six,  eight,  ten,  twelve,  four- 
teen, sixteen,  eighteen,  and  twenty  parts ;  those  in  the  next  column  into  three, 
six,  nine,  twelve,  &c. 

As  this  intuitional  alphabet  consists  of  geometrical  forms,  which  are  derived 
from  the  tenfold  subdivision  of  an  equilateral  square,  it  is  evident  that  we  have 
established  a  common  source  for  the  alphabet  of  intuition,  and  this  arithmetical 
alphabet ;  or,  rather,  that  we  have  established  such  a  harmony  between  the 
elementary  means  of  instruction  in  form  and  number,  that  our  geometrical 
forms  are  made  the  primary  basis  of  the  relations  of  numbers,  and  the  funda- 
mental relations  of  numbers,  on  the  other  hand,  the  primary  basis  of  the  geo- 
metrical forms. 

In  this  manner  we  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  we  can  not  teach  children 


216  PESTALOZZl.-METHODS  OF  INSTRUCTION. 

arithmetic,  under  our  method,  except  by  the  use  of  the  same  alphabet  which 
we  used  previously  as  an  alphabet  ol  intuition  in  the  more  restricted  sense ; 
that  is,  as  a  basis  for  measuring,  writing,  and  drawing. 

The  child's  apprehension  of  the  actual  material  relations  of  all  fractions  will 
become  so  clear  by  the  use  of  this  table,  that  the  study  of  fractions  in  the  usual 
figures,  as  in  the  case  of  the  arithmetic  of  integers,  will  become  incredibly  easy. 
Experience  shows  that  by  this  method  the  children  arrive  four  or  five  years 
earlier  at  a  proper  facility  by  this  method  than  could  possibly  be  the  case  without 
its  use.  These  exercises  also,  as  well  as  the  previous  ones,  preserve  the  child's 
mind  from  confusion,  omissions,  and  fanciful  instructions ;  and  in  this  respect 
also  it  may  be  said,  with  distinctness,  that  this  mode  of  studying  arithmetic  is 
exclusively  a  training  of  the  reason  ;  in  no  sense  a  mere  exercise  of  memory, 
nor  any  routine  mechanical  process.  It  is  the  result  of  the  clearest  and  most 
definite  intuitions ;  and  leads,  by  an  easy  path,  through  correct  understanding, 
to  truth. 

[The  following  "  Course  of  Instruction "  pursued  in  the  Normal  and 
Model  Schools  of  the  British  Home  and  Colonial  Infant  and  Juvenile 
School  Society,  on  Gray's  Inn  Road,  London,  presents  some  interesting 
applications,  as  well  as  modifications,  of  Pestalozzi's  methods  of  element- 
ary instruction  as  set  forth  in  the  foregoing  extracts  from  "How  Ger- 
trude Teaches  Her  Children."  ] 


NORMAL  SCHOOL  FOR  PRIMARY  SCHOOL  TEACHERS.  2 1 7 

COURSE  of  INSTRUCTION  for  the  TEACHERS  in  training  af  the  HOME  and  COLONIAL 
INFANT  and  JUVENILE  SCHOOL  SOCIETY. 

I.  SCRIPTURE. — The  authenticity  of  the  Bible  and  the  evidences  of  Christianity ; 
a  general  view  of  the  different  books  of  the  Bible ;  a  daily  Scripture  text  with  re- 
marks, chiefly  of  a  practical  nature ;  instruction  in  the  most  important  doctrines  of 
the  Bible  to  promote  real  religion,  the  lessons  especially  bearing  upon  the  duties 
and  trials  of  teachers. 

II.  WRITING  AND  SPELLING. 

III.  LANGUAGE. — Grammar;  etymology;  composition. 
IV".  NUMBER.— Mental  arithmetic ;  ciphering. 

V.  FORM. — Lines  and  angles  ;  superficies ;  solids. 

VI.  NATURAL  HISTORY. — Mammals ;  birds  ;  plants. 

VII.  ELEMENTARY  DRAWING. — For  the  cultivation  of  taste  and  invention;  as  an 
imitative  art. 

VIII.  VOCAL  Music. — Singing ;  the  notation  of  music. 

IX.  GEOGRAPHY. — A  general  view  of  the  world ;  England  and  its  colonies ; 
Palestine. 

X.  OBJECTS. — The  parts,  qualities,  and  uses  of  common  objects ;  the  essential 
properties  of  matter. 

XL — EDUCATIONAL  LESSONS. — Principles  of  education  as  founded  on  the  nature 
of  children ;  on  the  government  of  children,  and  moral  training ;  on  subjects  for 
lessons ;  on  graduated  instruction ;  on  methods  of  teaching ;  on  writing  and  giving 


XIL  PHYSICAL  EXERCISES. 

First  or  Lowest  Class.— Six  Weeks. 

The  students  in  this  class  are  chiefly  occupied  in  receiving  instruction  for  their  own  improve- 
ment, with  a  view  to  their  future  training. 
H.    M.  Morning. 

8  15.  The  business  of  the  day  is  commenced  with  a  text  from  Scripture,  and  remarks.  This  is 
followed  by  an  educational  motto,  setting  forth  some  principle  or  practice  of  education, 
on  which  a  few  remarks  are  also  made. 

8  30.  A  lesson  on  Scripture. 

9  15  Practice  in  singing  pieces  from  vf  Hymns  and  Poetry." 
9    30.  A  lesson  on  objects,  or  the  properties  of  matter. 

10    30.  Recreation. 

10  45.  Observing  a  lesson  given  to  the  children  in  one  of  the  practicing  schools  by  the  superin- 

tendent of  those  schools. 

11  30.  A  lesson  on  language. 

12  30.  Dismissal.  Afternoon. 

2  0.  A  lesson  previously  given  in  the  preparatory  or  practising  schools,  examined  as  to  its 

object,  and  the  method  of  giving  it. 

3  0.  A  lesson  on  number. 

4  0.  A  lesson  in  singing  and  the  notation  of  music,  or  in  drawing,  for  the  cultivation  of  taste 

and  invention. 

5  0.  Walking  exercise  on  Monday,  Wednesday,  and  Friday. 

5  30.  Dismissal  on  Tuesday  and  Thursday. 

Evening. 

6  30.  Scripture  instruction,  or  analyzing  lessons  in  "  Model  Lessons." 

7  30.  Entering' heads  of  lessons  in  note-books. 
9     15.  Dismissal. 

Saturday. 

8  15  A  Scripture  text  and  educational  motto,  as  on  the  previous  days. 

8  30.  Scripture  instruction. 

9  30.  Gymnastics,  under  a  drill-sergeant. 

10  30.  Scripture  instruction. 

11  30.  Entering  heads  of  lessons  in  note-books. 

Note.— The  afternoon  of  Saturday  is  a  holiday  for  all  the  teachers  in  the  Institution. 

Second  Class.— Twelve  Weeks. 

As  the  students  now  begin  what  may  properly  be  called  their  training,  more  time  is  appropil- 
ated  to  the  principles  and  practice  of  early  education. 
H.    M.  Morning. 

ft     15.  A  Scripture  text  and  educational  motto  as  to  the  lowest  class. 

8  30.  A  lesson  to  the  upper  section  of  the  class  in  geography,  or  on  the  principles  and  practice 

of  early  education,  and  to  the  lower  section  on  Scripture. 

9  15.  A  lesson  on  number  or  drawing  as  an  imitative  art. 

10       0.  In  charge  of  classes  of  children  in  the  schools,  or  a  continuation  of  the  lesson  on  drawing. 

10  45.  A  lesson  on  the  principles  and  practice  of  early  education. 

11  30.  Attending  and  remarking  on  gallery  lessons  given  by  students  of  the  class 

12  30.  Dismissal. 


218 


NORMAL  SCHOOL  FOR  PRIMARY  SCHOOL  TEACHERS. 


H.    M.  Afternoon. 

2      0.  In  charge  of  classes  of  children  m  the  schools. 

2  30.  Observing  a  lesson  given  to  the  children  by  the  mistress  of  the  infant  school. 

3  0.  Drawing  up  sketches  of  lessons,  or  analyzing  lessons  in  "Model  Lessons,"  or  other  exer- 

cises of  the  same  kind. 

4  0.  Notation  of  music,  or  practising  drawing. 

5  0.  Walking  exercise  on  Monday,  Wednesday,  and  Friday. 

Evening, 

6  30.  A  lesson  on  Scripture,  or  natural  history. 

7  30.  Entering  notes  in  daily  journals.* 
9    15.  Dismissal. 

Saturday. 

&    15.  A  Scripture  text  and  educational  motto,  as  in  the  other  days  of  the  week. 
fe    30.  A  lesson  to  the  upper  section  of  the  class  on  geography,  and  to  the  lower  section  on 

Scripture. 
9    30.  Gymnastics. 

10  30.  A  lesson  on  Scripture. 

11  30.  Entering  notes  in  daily  journals. 

Third  Class.— Six  Weeks. 

The  previous  instruction  and  practice  of  the  students  is  now  brought  to  bear  upon  the  govern- 
ment of  large  numbers  of  children,  and  the  time  is  chiefly  employed  as  assistants  in  the  schools, 
or  in  taking  the  entire  management  of  one  of  the  small  practicing  schools.    When  they  are  not  so 
employed,  their  time  is  occupied  as  follows,  viz.  : 
H.    M.  Morning. 

8  15.  A  Scripture  text  and  educational  motto. 

*    30.  A  lesson  on  the  principles  and 'practice  of  early  education,  or  on  geography. 

9  15.  In  the  schools  employed  as  general  assistants. 

12  30.  Dismissal. 

Afternoon. 
2      0.  In  the  schools  as  before. 

5  0.  Dismissal.  Evening. 

6  30.  A  lesson  on  natural  history  or  Scripture. 

7  30.  Entering  notes  in  daily  journals. 

9    15.  Dismissal.  Saturday. 

8  15.  A  Scripture  text  and  educational  motto. 

8  30.  A  lesson  on  geography. 

9  30.  Gymnastics. 

10  30.  A  Scripture  lesson. 

11  30.  Entering  notes  in  daily  journals. 

Time  allotted  to  each,  subject  of  study. 

The  following  table  exhibits  the  time  weekly  allotted  in  the  different  classes  to  each  subject  of 
study,  and  also  the  average  weekly  time. 


— 

First  or 
Lowest 
Class. 

Second  Class. 

Third 
Class. 

A  v  'race 

Weekly 

First 
Period. 

Second 
Period. 

I.  General  Improvement  :  —  Scripture        .... 
Writing  and  spelling,  reports  of  lessons,  tec. 
Language     .--..-.-- 
Number  and  form         ....... 
Natural  history    ...... 
Geography,  including  the  Holy  Land  - 
Objects       _  - 
Vocal  music          ...... 
Drawing       ...... 
Gymnastics  and  walking  exercise         - 

II.  Lessons  on  the  principles  and  practice  of  early  education 

III.  Practice  in  the  Schools:  —  Taking  charge  of  classes,  > 
and  afterwards  of  galleries  of  children                     j 
Giving  an  opinion  on  the  lessons  of  other  teachers,  » 
Giving  lessons  publicly     -        -         -        -         -        \ 
Attending  as  assistants  in  the  schools        - 
Having  the  sole  charge  of  schools  under  inspection    - 

Recapitulation  :  —  General  improvement          ... 
Principles  and  practice  of  education     - 

H.    M. 

8    30 
10    30 
6    15 
5      0 
0      0 
0      0 
6    15 
4    15 
3      0 
1      0 

H.    M. 

7      0 
12    30 
2    15 
0      0 
3      0 
1      0 
0      0 
3      0 
5      0 
1      0 

H.    M. 
7        0 

12    30 
0      0 
2    15 
3      0 
1     15 
0      0 
3      0 
5      0 
1      0 

H.    M. 
3     45 
10     30 
0      0 
0      0 
3      0 
2    30 
0      0 
0      0 
0      0 
1      0 

H.    M. 

6    34 
11     30 
2      7 
1     49 
2    15 
1     11 
1    34 
2    34 
3    15 
1      0 

11    15 

0      0 

0      0 

0      0 
0      0 

12    30 

12    45 

3      0 

9    45 

4      0 

4    30 

0      0 
0      0 

4      0 

4    30 

0      0 
0      0 

34    45 

12    45 
8    30 

0      0 

0      0 

32    15 

0       0 

20    45 
3       0 
32     15 

2      0 

2    15 

0      0 
10    13 

34      0 
9    45 
12    15 

56      0 

44    45 
11    15 
0      0 

35      0 
12    30 
8    30 

Total  number  of  hours  weekly    - 

56      0 

56      0 

56      0 

56      0 

•  Much  time  and '  attention  are  given  to  these  journals,  both  by  the  students  and  those  who  instruct  them,  ag 
Well  as  by  the  ladies  of  the  Committee,  to  whom  they  are  «eut  for  examination. 


NORMAL  SCHOOL  FOR  PRIMARY  SCHOOL  TEACHERS.  219 

It  is  deemed  unnecessary  to  give  any  syllabus  of  the  courses  of  ordinary  in- 
struction, but  the  following  syllabus  of  lessons  on  the  principles  and  practice  of 
early  education,  is  annexed,  as  it  shows  what  is  in  some  degree  peculiar  to  tin's  in- 
stitution. 

First  Course. 

It  is  a  distinctive  feature  at  this  course  that  the  ideas  are  chiefly  gained  from 
examples  presented  to  the  students.  The  lessons  are  mainly  explanatory  of  the 
examples. 

I.  Lesson  on  the  daily  routine  of  employment  in  the  Institution.  The  instruc- 
tions by  the  committee  for  students.  General  rules  and  regulations. 

IL  Examination  and  analysis  of  lessons  from  "  Model  Lessons,"  viz. : — 

Lessons  on  objects,  Part  L  p.  61-93. 
"  color,  Part  I.  p.  149-157. 

animals,  Part  I.  p.  160-165. 
"          number,  Part  L  p.  103-140. 
Scripture  Lessons,  Part  IIL  p.  1-28. 

III.  Drawing  out  sketches  of  lessons  on  various  subjects,  after  the  example  of 
those  analyzed. 

I.— On  Objects. 

1.  On  a  shell  or  leaf,  according  to  the  model  of  a  lesson  on  a  feather. 

2.  Copper  or  iron     ....  lead. 

3.  Tea  or  sealing  wax     ..."  loaf  sugar. 

4.  Vinegar  or  ink  "  "  milk 

5.  Recapitulation. 


6.  Parchment 

7.  Cloth 

8.  Pipeclay     . 

9.  Wood  or  rice 

10.  Recapitulation. 

11.  A  candle  or  hammer 

12.  A  turnip  or  acorn 

13.  An  ess 


paper, 
leather, 
chalk, 
coal 

lead. 

a  rose-leaf. 

honeycomb. 


14.  A  bird  or  bee     .        ..."  a  butterfly. 

15.  Recapitulation. 

IL — On  Animals. 
1.  Sheep    .    model — hare.  2.  Goat       .     model — cow. 

IIL— On  Color. 
1.  The  color  blue    .    model — red.  2.  Color  yellow     .    model — green. 

IV.  Lessons  in  which  "  Practical  Remarks  "  form  the  text-book. 

V.  On  the  art  of  questioning  children,  and  on  the  different  methods  of  giving 

lessons. 

The  students  afterwards  draw  out  lessons  in  full,  according  to  models 
given. 

VL  On  the  best  method  of  drawing  out  children's  observation  upon  the  objects 
around  them,  and  upon  the  circumstances  in  which  they  are  placed,  and 
on  fixing  the  knowledge  so  gained  in  the  mind. 

VIL  The  characteristics  of  young  children  that  must  be  kept  in  view  and  acted 
upon,  in  order  to  secure  their  attention,  to  interest  them  in  their  lessons, 
and  to  gain  ascendency  over  them. 

1.  Love  of  activity. 

2.  Love  of  imitation. 

3.  Curiosity,  or  love  of  knowledge. 

4.  Susceptibility  to  kindness  and  sympathy. 

5.  Deficiency  in  the  power  of  attention. 

6.  The  love  of  frequent  change. 

7.  The  force  of  early  association. 

8.  Disposition  to  repeat  the  means  by  which  they  have  once  at- 

tained their  ends. 


220  NORMAL  SCHOOL  FOR  PRIMARY  SCHOOL  TEACHERS. 

VIII.  On  the  senses,  and  the  use  to  be  made  of  them  in  early  education. 

IX.  The  gallery  lessons  given  to  the  children  of  the  preparatory  or  practicing 

schools,  as  to  the  subjects,  the  manner  of  treating  them,  and  their  bear- 
ing upon  the  education  of  the  children. 

First  Preparatory  School. — 1.  Form — 1st  step. 

2.  Color — 1st  and  2nd  step. 

3.  Size — 1st  step. 

4.  Actions — 1st  step. 

5.  Human  body — 1st  step. 

6.  Objects — 1st  step. 

7.  Number — 1st  step. 

8.  Religious  instruction — 1st  step. 

9.  Sounds — 1st  step. 

Second  Preparatory  School. — 1.  Form — 2nd  step. 

2.  Color— 3rd  and  4th  step. 

3.  Size — 2nd  step. 

4.  Actions — 2nd  step. 

5.  Place — 1st  step. 

6.  Objects — 2nd  step. 

7.  Animals — 2nd  step. 

8.  Number — 2nd  and  3rd  step. 

9.  Moral  instruction — 2nd  step. 
10.  Religious  instruction — 2nd  step. 
11:  Sounds — 2nd  step. 

X.  A  general  view  of  the  different  subjects  of  instruction  in  the  preparatory 

schools,  with  a  view  to  lead  the  students  to  draw  from  them  principles 
and  plans  of  teaching. 

Second  Course. 
I.  Instructions  on  familiar  or  conversational  lessons,  and  on  the  subjects  chosen 

for  these  lessons,  in  the  preparatory  schools. 
IL  Analysis  of  lessons  in  "Model  Lessons." 

-  1.  Form,  Part  II.  p.  150-226. 

2.  The  human  body,  Part  I  p.  24-50. 

3.  A  flower,  Part  II.  p.  65-76. 

4.  Scripture  lessons,  Part  II.  p.  1-21. 

5.  Bible  examination,  Part  II.  p.  125-132. 

IIL  Drawing  up  sketches  of  lessons  in  writing,  according  to  a  given  model, 
first,  singly,  and  then  in  a  series  or  course. 

Objects. 

1.  On  sugar,  after  the  model  of  the  lesson  on  bread. 

2.  Spices  and  liquids  corns. 

3.  Leather  and  silk  "  "  cotton. 

Animals. 

1.  On  a  tiger        .        .        .        Model — A  pheasant 

2.  The  elephant  and  the  cat       .       "          A  pig. 

3.  Different  kinds  of  teeth         .      "        Different  kinds  of  feet 

of  animals. 

4.  Comparison    of   parts  of   a 

quadruped  and  bird.      .     .      "        Hand  and  foot 

Scripture  Illustrations. 

1.  The  sun  and  the  dew.    Model — The  rainbow. 

2.  Sheep — lion  "         The  vine. 

3.  Fishermen  of  Galilee          "         The  shepherds  of  Judsea. 

Scripture  Narratives. 

1.  On  the  Prodigal  Son,  and  on  >  Model — Joseph's  forgiveness 

2.  The  Brazen  Serpent  .  $  of  lib  brethren. 


NORMAL  SCHOOL  FOR  PRIMARY  SCHOOL  TEACHERS.  221 

8.  David's  Veneration  for  his  King    "         Solomon's  respect 

for  his  mother. 
4.  The  Nobleman's  Son.  «          Mark  x.  46  to  52. 

In  Series  or  Course. 

1.  A  variety  of  sketches,  after  the  model  of  the  lesson  on 

water. 

2.  A  series  of  sketches  on  a  given  subject  on 

prayer,  <fec.,  as  in  "  Model  Lessons,"  Part  IIL  p.  24,  cfec. 

3.  A  graduated  series  of  sketches  on  the  "  on  a 

same  subject.  straw,  a  cat,  Ac. 

4.  On  the  subjects  appointed  for  lessons  weekly  at  the  differ-  j 

ent  galleries. 

IV.  Writing  out  lessons  in  full  on  specified  subjects — As 

1.  To  develop  the  idea  of  Inodorous. 

2.  "  «          Pliable. 

Tasteless. 


4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

8. 

9. 
10. 
11. 
12. 
13. 
14. 


Soluble  and  fusible. 

Semitransparent. 

Elastic. 

Aromatic. 

Natural  and  artificial. 

Lesson  on  an  elephant 

Comparison  of  the  cow  and  pig. 

A  piece  of  poetry. 

The  rainbow. 

The  addition  or  subtraction  of  8. 

Explanation  of  the  terms — sum,   remainder, 


product,  quotient. 

15.  "          Substance  of  lesson  X.  in  Reiner's  "  Lessons 

on  Form." 

16.  «  "          On  the  illustration  of  the  general  truth,  « God 

is  angry  with  the  wicked  every  day." 

Note, — The  number  of  sketches  and  lessons  which  the  students  are  enabled  to 
draw  out  during  their  training  of  course  depends  upon  their  ability  and  upon  the 
previous  education  they  have  received.  Some  of  these  lessons  are  examined  pub- 
licly, that  their  excellencies  or  errors  may  be  pointed  out  for  the  improvement  of 
the  class,  the  name  of  the  writer  being  withheld. 

V. — Gallery  Lessons. — With  reference  to  the  Gallery  Lessons,  instructions 
arc  given  on  the  following  points : — 

1.  The  sketch. 

2.  The  subject-matter. 

3.  The  summary. 

4.  The  application  of  a  moral  subject 

5.  On  maintaining  order  and  interest. 

6.  The  exercise  of  the  minds  of  the  children,  and  the  knowledge  gained. 

7.  The  manner  of  the  teacher. 

8.  Voice — pronunciation. 

9.  Importance  of  attention  to  the  whole  gallery  of  children. 

10.  On  the  use  to  be  made  of  incidental  circumstances. 

11.  On  the  questions  to  the  children. 

12.  Mechanical  plans. 

VI. — On  the  subjects  taught  in  the  schools,  their  suitability  to  the  children, 
and  the  mode  of  treating  them  : — 

1.  Color. 

2.  Form. 
8.  Size. 

4.  Weight 

6.  Physical  actions  and  operations. 


222  NORMAL  SCHOOL  FOR  PRIMARY  SCHOOL  TEACHERS. 

6.  Number. 

7.  Place,  as  preparatory  to  geography. 

8.  Sounds,  as  preparatory  to  singing  and  the  notation  of  music, 

9.  Objects,  including  models  of  common  utensils. 

10.  Teaching  by  pictures  of  common  objects,  and  drawing  objects  before 

children. 

11.  The  human  body. 

12.  Animals. 

13.  'Moral  instruction. 

14.  Religious  instruction. 

15.  Teaching  pieces  of  poetry. 

16.  Drawing  and  writing. 

17.  Reading  and  spelling. 

18.  Language,  including  composition,  grammar,  and  the  explanation  of 

words. 

19.  Number,  form  and  language,  as  the  elements  of  intellectual  instruc- 

tion. 

20.  Summary  of  the  principles  learnt  in  considering  the  subjects  of  lessons 

for  infants. 

21.  Drawing  out  sketches  of  the  different  methods  of  giving  lessons,  and 

the  uses  to  be  made  of  them,  showing  which  are  bad  and  which  are 
good,  and  those  suitable  to  different  subjects. 

VIL—  Miscellaneous:— 

1.  A  course  of  educational  mottoes. 

2.  On  intuitive  knowledge  and  early  development 

3.  On  principles  and  plans  of  education. 

4.  Anecdotes  of  occurrences  in  the  school,  brought  forward  with  a  view 

to  form  right  principles  of  moral  training  and  intellectual  develop- 
ment. 

6'  On  the  play  -ground,  especially  in  reference  to  its  influence  in  the  in- 
tellectual and  moral  training  of  children. 

Third  Course. 
L  —  The  practice  of  the  school-room,  and  the  principles  on  which  it  should  be 

regulated  :  — 
The  school-room  and  its  apparatus,  including  library,  collection  of  objects 


openng  an    genera  arrangemens  o  a  scoo. 

ndance,  and  the  best  method  of  raising  and  filling  a  school. 

ission  payment,  and  first  treatment  of  children. 

ral  order  and    uietness. 


The  opening  and  general  arrangements  of  a  school. 

Atten 

Admission 

General  order  and  q 

The  physical  state  of  the  children,  health,  cleanliness,  neatness. 

The  exercises  of  the  school-room  and  play-ground. 

The  division  of  time,  and  the  subjects  of  lessons  in  a  school. 

Modes  of  leading  elder  scholars  to  work,  independently  of  the  master's 

direct  teaching. 

The  government  of  a  school  with  respect  to  its  spirit  and  plans. 
The  influence  of  numbers  in  teaching  and  moral  training. 
Rewards,  punishments,  emulation. 

Assistance,  including  paid  assistants  and  monitors  ;  the  monitorial  system. 
The  defects  and  advantages  of  the  individual,  and  simultaneous  methods  of 

instruction,  and  the  use  of  the  ellipses. 

Examinations  by  the  teacher,  for  parents  and  for  subscribers. 
Holidays. 

II.  —  Points  respecting  teachers  :  — 

The  intellectual  and  moral  qualifications  of  a  teacher,  and  the  circumstances 

which  affect  him  in  his  labors. 

The  conduct  of  teachers  to  parents,  committees,  inspectors,  and  the  public. 
The  means  by  which  teachers  may  carry  on  their  own  improvement. 


NORMAL  SCHOOL  FOR  PRIMARY  SCHOOL  TEACHERS.  223 

IIL — On  the  mental  and  moral  constitution  of  children  with  reference  to  the 
principles  on  which  education  should  be  based : — 

Mental 
The  various  operations  of  the  mind,  intellectual  and  moral,  and  the  wisdom 

and  goodness  of  God  which  they  display. 
The  dependence  of  one  intellectual  faculty  upon  another,  and  the  necessity 

for  the  orderly  and  progressive  development  of  the  whole. 
The  intellectual  diversities  of  children,  and  the  method  of  treating  each 
variety  of  character. 

Moral. 
The  importance  of  moral  training  on  a  religious  basis,  showing  how  the 

Bible  should  be  our  guide. 

Diversities  in  the  moral  character  of  children,  and  the  method  of  treating 
each,  viz., 

Attachments  of  children. 

Anger,  and  the  treatment  of  passionate  children. 

Quarrelsome  children. 

Children  disposed  to  injure  and  destroy. 

Cunning  children. 

Covetous  children. 

Fear,  and  its  use  and  abuse,  as  a  means  of  discipline  with  children. 

Firmness,  and  its  tendency  to  become  obstinacy. 

The  love  of  distinction  and  applause. 

The  cultivation  of  benevolence. 

The  sense  of  right  and  wrong. 

Respect. 

Obedience. 

IV. — General  truths  respecting  the  operations  of  the  minds  and  moral  feeling^ 
and  the  uses  to  be  made  of  them  in  the  education  of  children. 

The  Graduated  Course  of  Instruction  pursued  in  the  Model  Schools. 

I.  RELIGIOUS  INSTRUCTION. — 1st  step:  Moral  Impressions. — The  children  of  this 
gallery  are  very  young,  direct  religious  instruction  can  scarcely  be  attempted  at 
first,  but  their  moral  sense  is  to  be  cultivated,  and  moral  habits  formed.  For  in- 
stance, little  acts  of  obedience  are  to  be  required  from  them — their  conduct  to- 
wards each  other  regulated,  and  little  conversational  lessons  are  to  be  given  upon 
the  kindness  of  their  parents  and  teachers,  Avith  a  view  to  develop  the  feeling  of 
love,  and  to  instruct  them  in  their  duties. 

2nd  step  :  First  Ideas  of  God. — The  object,  as  the  children  advance,  is  to  pro- 
duce the  first  impressions  of  their  Heavenly  Father — to  lead  them  to  feel  some- 
what of  his  power  from  its  manifestation  in  those  works  of  his  with  which  they 
are  familiar ;  and  somewhat  of  his  benevolence,  by  comparing  it  with  the  love 
shown  them  by  their  parents  and  friends. 

3rd  step  :  A  Scripture  Print. — The  story  to  be  gathered  from  the  picture,  by 
directing  the  attention  of  the  children  to  it,  and  by  questioning  them.  A  portion 
of  the  Scripture  should  be  given,  that  the  children  may  connect  the  narrative  with 
the  Bible,  and  receive  it  as  Divine  instruction.  The  children  should  also  be  en- 
couraged to  make  their  remarks,  by  which  the  teacher  may  ascertain  how  far 
their  ideas  are  correct.  The  object  of  the  lesson  should  be  to  make  a  religious 
and  moral  impression. 

4//i  step  :  Scripture  Narratives. — The  incidents  or  characters  should  be  chose 
with  a  view  to  inculcate  some  important  truth  or  influential  precept.  Elliptical 
teaching  should  be  introduced  to  help  the  children  to  receive  the  story  as  a  whole, 
and  to  sum  up  the  lesson.  In  giving  these  lessons,  the  story  itself  should  be  either 
read  from  the  Bible,  or  partly  read  and  partly  narrated,  and  pictures  only  used 
occasionally,  to  illustrate  and  throw  interest  into  the  subject  Teachers  ought  well 
to  consider  the  different  positions  that  pictures  should  occupy  in  the  different  stages 
of  instruction. 

6th  step :  Scripture  Illustrations  of  Doctrines  and  Precepts. — Narratives, 
chosen  with  a  view  to  inculcate  some  of  the  most  simple  and  fundamental  doo- 


224  NORMAL  SCHOOL  FOR  PRIMARY  SCHOOL  TEACHERS. 

trines  of  Christianity.  For  instance,  sin,  its  nature,  introduction  into  the  world,  its 
consequences,  and  the  remedy  provided  for  it  in  the  sacrifice  of  the  Saviour.  As 
the  children  advance,  some  lessons  to  be  given  to  illustrate  the  natural  history  of 
the  Bible. 

NOTE. — Tn  the  first  or  early  lessons  on  Scripture  narratives,  the  truth  or  pre- 
cept should  be  drawn  from  the  story  by  the  children.  In  the  later  lessons,  the 
precept  or  reh'gious  truth  or  duty  may  be  stated  as  the  subject  of  the  lesson,  and 
the  children  required  to  discover  what  Scripture  narratives  illustrate  the  truth  or 
precept  they  are  considering. 

6th  step. — A  course  from  the  Bible,  or  a  course  on  the  Natural  History  of  the 
Bible.  On  Monday,  Scripture  geography. 

II.  OBJECTS. — 1st  step. — Distinguishing  or  naming  three  or  four  common   ob- 
jects, and  telling  their  uses ;  or  distinguishing  and  naming  the  parts  of  common 
objects,  and  stating  their  uses. 

2nd  step. — One  Object  chosen  that  exhibits  in  a  remarkable  degree  some  par- 
ticular quality,  that  the  idea  of  that  quality  may  be  developed.  Another,  having 
distinct  parts,  which  the  children  are  to  discover,  and  of  which  they  are  told  the 
names. 

3rd  step  :  One  Object. — The  children  to  find  out  the  qualities  that  can  be  dis- 
covered by  the  senses  alone ;  also  to  distinguish  and  name  the  parts. 

4th  step  :  Miscellaneous  Objects,  Metals,  JSarths,  Liquids,  &c.  One  Object. — 
The  children  to  extend  their  observations  to  qualities,  beyond  those  which  are  im- 
mediately discoverable  by  the  senses.  A  little  simple  information  to  be  given  at 
this  stage  on  the  natural  history  or  manufacture  of  the  object,  after  the  children's 
observation  has  been  called  out. 

5th  step  :  Several  objects. — The  children  to  compare  them,  and  point  out  their 
points  of  resemblance  and  difference. 

III.  Tors. — Model  toys  of  kitchen  utensils,   common  carpenters'  tools,    tfce., 
naming  them,  and  telling  or  showing  their  uses. 

IV.  PICTURES. — 1st  step. — Groups  of  objects  or  single  figures, — naming  and 
talking  about  them. 

2rid  step. — Part  of  the  lesson  to  be  on  the  recollection  of  a  picture  used  in  a 
former  lesson — part  on  a  picture  of  common  objects. 

V.  HUMAN  BODY. — 1st  step. — Distinguishing  the  principal  parts  of  the  human 
body,  the  teacher  naming  them  ;  or  the  children  exercising  any  part  of  the   body 
as  directed.     This  lesson  should  be  accompanied  with  considerable  action,  to  ani- 
mate the  children. 

2nd  step. — Distinguishing  the  secondary  parts  of  the  body.  This  lesson  to  be 
extended  to  the  parts  of  the  principal  parts  of  the  human  body,  the  teacher  con- 
tinuing to  name  them :  a  good  deal  of  action  still  to  be  used. 

3rd  step. — Distinguishing  the  parts  of  the  principal  parts  of  the  human  body — 
the  children  naming  them,  and  telling  their  uses. 

VI.  FORM. — 1st  step. — Distinguishing  the  patterns  of  shapes  for  the  purpose  of 
developing  the  idea  of  form — the  children  to  distinguish  them — no  names  being 
used. 

2nd  step. — The  children  continuing  to  select  the  patterns  of  shapes,  according 
to  the  one  shown ;  when  perfect  in  this,  they  may  select  all  those  that  have  the 
same  number  and  kind  of  edges,  and  the  same  number  of  corners. 

3rd  step. — The  children  to  determine  the  number  of  sides  and  corners  in  planes, 
whether  the  sides  are  straight  or  curved ;  also  to  learn  the  names  of  the  planes. 

4th  step. — A  solid  is  shown,  and  the  children  select  all  those  that  resemble  it 
in  some  points ;  the  names  of  the  solids  are  not  to  be  given.  The  letters  of  the 
alphabet  to  be  examined,  and  the  number  and  direction  of  their  lines  to  be  deter- 
mined. 

6th  step. — To  determine  the  length  of  different  measures,  learn  their  names,  and 
practice  the  introductory  lessons  on  Form  in  "Model  Lessons,"  part  II. 

6th  step. — The  course  of  lessons  on  Form  in  "  Model  Lessons,"  part  II. 

VIL  ANIMALS. — 1st  step:  A  Domestic  Animal. — A  picture  or  a  stuffed  speci- 
men may  be  shown.  The  children  to  be  encouraged  in  talking  about  it,  to  say 


NORMAL  SCHOOL  FOR  PRIMARY  SCHOOL  TEACHERS.  005 

what  they  observe  or  know,  without  reference  to  any  arrangement,  the  aim  of  the 
instruction  being  to  elicit  observation,  to  cultivate  the  power  of  expression,  and 
especially  to  encourage  humane  and  benevolent  feelings  towards  the  inferior  crea- 
tion. At  this  stage  it  is  well  sometimes  to  allow  the  children  themselves  to  pro- 
pose the  animal  that  they  are  to  talk  about. 

2nd  step :  A  Domestic  Animal. — Children  to  name  its  parts,  color,  size,  and 
appearance.  An  attempt  should  be  made  in  this  stage,  at  a  little  arrangement  ot 
the  subject,  but  it  should  not  be  too  rigidly  required.  One  principal  object  should 
be  to  encourage  humane  and  benevolent  feelings  towards  the  lower  animals. 

3rd  step :  A  Domestic  Animal. — Children  to  describe  the  uses  of  domestic  ani- 
mals, their  different  actions,  and  with  what  limb  they  perform  any  action,  the 
sounds  they  make,  our  duties  with  respect  to  them,  &c.  These  alternate  weekly 
with 

4th  step :  Animals  and  Human  Body. — The  children  to  describe  where  the 
different  parts  of  the  human  body  are  situated,  and  to  compare  those  parts  with 
the  parts  of  animals,  pointing  out  in  what  they  are  alike,  in  what  they  differ,  and 
how  fitted  to  the  habits  and  wants  of  man,  or  of  the  different  animals.  See  course 
in  "  Model  Lessons,"  part  I. 

6th  step  :  Wild  Animals. — Children  to  tell  their  parts,  color,  size,  and  appear- 
ance ;  to  point  out  how  particularly  distinguished,  and  to  learn  eomething  of  their 
habits  and  residence  ;  being  led  to  perceive  how  the  animal  is  fitted  by  the  Al- 
mighty for  its  habits  and  locality. 

VIII.  PLANTS. — 1st  step. — Naming  the  parts  of  plants,  and  telling  their  uses 
to  man  as  food,  <fec. 

2nd  step. — See  course  in  "  Model  Lessons,"  part  II. 

IX.  NUMBER. — 1st  step :  first  Idea  of  Number. — The  idea  of  the  numbers 
from  1  to  5  or  6,  to  be  developed  by  the  use  of  the  ball  frame  and  miscellaneous 
objects,  as  exemplified  in  Reiner's  introductory  lesson,  "  Lessons  on  Number,"  re- 
printed, by  permission  of  the  author,  for  the  use  of  the  teachers  of  the  institution, 
m  "  Papers  on  Arithemetic  ;"  to  which  may  be  added  many  additional  exercises, 
such  as  those  in  the  1st  and  2nd  sections  of  "  Arithmetic  for  young  Children,"  <fec. 

2nd  step  :  First  Idea  of  Number. — The  idea  of  the  numbers  from  6  to  10  to  be 
developed  by  the  use  of  the  ball  frame,  as  before ;  also  the  first  and  second  exer- 
cises in  "  Model  Lessons,"  part  i.,  to  be  used  as  directed  in  that  work. 

3rd  step :  Addition  and  Subtraction. — The  remaining  exercise  under  section  I., 
also  the  whole  of  the  exercises  on  subtraction  in  the  same  work. 

4th  step. — The  more  difficult  exercises  in  "  Model  Lessons,"  part  L,  <fec.,  acconv 
panied  by  selected  exercises  from  "  Arithmetic  for  Children." 

5th  step  :  The  Four  Simple  Hides. — Exercises  on  the  four  simple  rules,  in  num- 
ber from  10  to  100,  from  "Papers  on  Arithmetic,"  and  "Lessons  on  Number;" 
also  simple  explanations  of  the  rules,  leading  the  children  to  think  of  the  opera- 
tion they  have  been  performing ;  also,  by  numerous  exercises,  to  lead  them  to 
perceive  some  of  the  general  properties  of  number. 

X.  COLOR. — 1st  step. — Selecting  colors  according  to  a  pattern  shown,  and  ar- 
ranging colors,  no  names  being  used. 

2nd  step. — Learning  the  names  of  the  different  colors,  and  selecting  them  when 
called  for  by  name. 

3rd  step. — Distinguishing  and  naming  colors  and  shades  of  colors,  and  pro- 
ducing examples  from  surrounding  objects ;  with  exercises  on  beads  of  different 
colors. 

4th  step. — Distinguishing  and  naming  shades  of  color,  and  producing  examples 
from  memory. 

5th  step. — The  lessons  in  this  step  to  be  given  on  a  specific  color ;  the  children 
are  also  to  learn  from  seeing  them  mixed,  how  the  secondary  colors  are  produced 
from  the  primary. 

XI.  DRAWING. — From  the  age  of  the  juveniles,  and  also  from  drawing  not 
coming  under  the  head  of  "  Gallery  Lessons,"  the  following  course  of  exercises  can- 
not be  so  well  arranged  into  stages  for  the  various  schools.     It  is  also  thought 
desirable  that  one  of  the  courses  of  lessons  should  be  presented  in  a  continuous 

30 


226  NORMAL  SCHOOL  FOR  PRIMARY  SCHOOL  TEACHERS. 

form,  tliat  the  extent  and  variety  of  exercise  which  they  are  intended  to  give  to 
the  mind  may  be  observed.  The  courses  form  two  series  of  exercises,  commenced 
in  the  infant-school,  and  completed  in  the  juvenile -school. 

First  Series — To  Exercise  the  Eye  alone. 

Measuring  relatively. — Let  the  children  determine  the  relative  length  of  lines 
drawn  in  the  same  direction  on  the  slate,  i.  e.,  which  is  longest,  which  is  shortest, 
<fec.  Whenever  there  is  a  difference  of  opinion,  prove  who  is  correct,  by  mea- 
suring. 

Determine  the  relative  length  of  lines  drawn  in  different  directions  on  the 
slate. 

Determine  the  relative  distances  between  dots  made  on  the  slate. 

Determine  the  relative  difference  of  the  distances  between  different  parallel 
lines. 

Determine  the  relative  size  of  angles. 

Determine  the  relative  degree  of  inclination  of  lines  from  the  perpendicular — 
first,  by  comparing  them  with  a  perpendicular  line,  drawn  on  another  part  of  the 
slate — and  afterwards  without  this  assistance. 

The  same  exercise  with  horizontal  lines. 

Determine  the  relative  size  of  circles,  and  then  of  portions  of  circles. 

Children  called  out  to  divide  straight  lines,  drawn  in  different  directions,  into 
2,  3,  4,  &c.,  equal  or  given  parts,  the  others  to  state  their  opinions  as  to  the  cor- 
rectness with  which  the  operation  has  been  done. 

The  above  exercise  repeated  with  curved  lines  in  different  directions. 

NOTE. — Several  of  the  above  exercises  may  be  applied  to  the  lengths,  &c.,  of 
the  objects  and  pictures  in  the  room. 

Measuring  by  current  Standards. — The  teacher  to  give  the  children  the  idea  of 
an  inch,  nail,  quarter  of  a  yard,  foot,  ha'.f  a  yard,  and  yard,  which,  at  first,  should 
be  drawn  in  a  conspicuous  place,  for  the  whole  class  to  see. 

To  decide  the  length  of  lines. — First  practice  the  children  upon  the  inch,  then 
upon  the  nail,  and  so  on  up  to  the  yard ;  continually  referring  to  the  standard 
measures. 

NOTE. — These  exercises  should  be  continued  until  the  eye  can  decide  with 
tolerable  accuracy. 

Determining  the  length  of  lines  combined  in  various  rectilinear  geometrical 
figures. 

Determining  the  circumference  or  girth  of  various  objects. 

Determining  distances  of  greater  extent,  such  as  the  floor  and  walls  of  the 
room,  the  play-ground,  <fec.,  &c. 

Measuring  by  any  given  Standard. — Measuring  sizes,  heights,  lengths,  <fcc.,  by 
any  given  standard. 

How  often  a  given  standard  will  occupy  any  given  space,  with  respect  to  su- 
perficies. 

Second  Scries — To  Exercise  both  the  Eye  and  Hand. 

Before  commencing  these  exercises,  it  would  be  advisable  to  give  the  children 
instruction  (in  a  class  around  the  large  slate)  with  regard  to  the  manner  of  holding 
the  pencil,  the  position  of  the  hand  in  drawing  lines  in  various  directions.  This 
will  be  found  to  diminish  the  labor  of  attending  to  each  individual  separately.  In- 
struction as  to  the  position  of  the  body  may  be  left  till  the  children  are  placed  at 
the  desks. 

NOTE. — The  standard  measures,  used  previously,  should  be  painted  on  the 
walls,  or  placed  conspicuously  before  the  class  in  some  manner,  both  horizontally 


and  perpendicularly,  in  order  to  accustom  the  children  to  them. 

The  children  to  practice  drawing  sti-aigl 
increasing  them  in  length.    First  perpendicular, second  horizontal,  third  right  ofe- 


he  children  to  practice  drawing  straight  lines  in  different  directions,  gradually 


lique,  fourth  left  oblique. 

To  draw  lines  of  given  lengths  and  directions. 

To  divide  the  lines  they  draw  into  given  parts. 

To  draw  curved  lines  in  different  directions,  gradually  increasing  in  size. 

To  try  how  many  angles  they  can  make  with  2,  3,  4,  <fec.,  lines. 


NORMAL  SCHOOL  FOR  PRIMARY  SCHOOL  TEACH  KRS.  227 

To  try  what  they  can  make  of  2,  3, 4,  &c.,  curved  lines.  Then  proceeding  to 
copies;  first  copying  those  formed  of  straight  linos,  then  those  of  curved  lines. 

To  draw  from  copies. 

NOTE. — Tn  the  course  of  forming  figures  out  of  straight  and  curved  lines,  the 
children  should  be  taught  to  make  the  letters  of  the  alphabet. 

XII.  GEOGRAPHY. — 1st  step. — The  course  consists  of  the  following  series  of  les- 
sons :  1.  The  cardinal  points.  2.  The  semi-cardinal  points.  3.  The  necessity  of 
having  fixed  points.  4.  The  relative  position  of  objects.  5.  The  boundaries  of 
the  school-room.  6.  The  boundaries  of  the  play-ground.  7.  The  relative  distances 
of  the  parts  and  objects  of  the  school-room.  8.  The  relative  distances  of  the  parts 
and  furniture  of  the  school-room  marked  on  a  map,  drawn  on  the  large  slate  or 
black  board  with  chalk,  before  the  children.  9.  The  scale  of  a  map.  10.  The 
relative  positions  and  distances  of  different  places  on  a  map  of  the  neighborhood. 
11.  The  map  of  England.  12.  The  map  of  the  Holy  Land. 


PATERNAL    INSTRUCTIONS. 

DURING  that  happiest  period  of  Pestalozzi's  career,  his  labors  at  Burg- 
dorf,  he  sketched  out  many  rough  drafts  of  lessons,  to  be  filled  up  by 
his  assistants,  in  their  class  room  exercises,  as  a  sort  of  encyclopedia  of 
social  science.  Many  of  these  fragments  came  into  the  possession  of 
Kriisi,  who,  after  the  death  of  Pcstalozzi,  edited  and  published  them 
under  the  title  of  "  Paternal  Instructions,  a  Bequest  of  Father  Pesta- 
lozzi  to  His  Pupils."  We  give  a  few  extracts  from  Biber's  volume. 

Almsgiving. 
"The  best  alms  is  that  which  enables  the  receiver  to  cease  begging." 

Changing, 

"  Change,  my  child,  change  all  that  them  doest  and  performest,  until  thou  hast 
perfected  it,  and  thou  be  fully  satisfied  with  it.  Change  not  thyself,  however, 
like  a  weathercock,  with  every  wind  ;  but  change  thyself  so  that  thou  mayest 
become  better  and  nobler,  and  that  all  that  thou  doest  may  be  ever  more  excellent 
and  perfect.  No  such  change  will  ever  cause  thee  to  repent." 

Baking. 

"  Baking  is,  like  all  cooking,  a  fruit  of  civilization.  The  savage  knows  of  no 
preparation  of  his  food ;  he  eats  every  thing  raw,  like  the  brutes,  and,  accordingly, 
he  eats  it,  like  them,  with  brutal  greediness.  A  wise  diet  of  meat  and  drink  is 
only  possible  when  the  food  is  prepared  by  art,  and  it  is  then  only  that  man  can 
guard  himself  against  the  voracity  of  the  animal.  Baking,  therefore,  and  every 
other  sort  of  cooking,  is  a  far  more  important  business  than  it  appears  to  be  at 
first  sight.  It  procures  to  us  the  most  wholesome  of  all  nutriments — that  bread 
which,  as  a  common  necessary  of  life,  we  daily  ask  of  God,  in  the  most  sublime 
of  all  prayers." 

Bathing. 

"  By  bathing  we  cleanse  ourselves  from  bodily  impurities ;  the  impurities  of  the 
soul,  however,  are  not  removed  either  by  common  or  by  consecrated  water,  but 
only  by  a  renovation  of  mind  in  faith  and  love." 

Quaking. 

"  The  most  violent  quaking,  which  causes  houses  and  cities  to  fall  in  ruins,  and 
which  shakes  even  the  foundations  of  the  mountains,  is  that  terrible  convulsion 
of  nature  which  we  call  an  earthquake ;  but  infinitely  more  terrible  is  the  secret 
quaking  of  a  guilt-laden  soul,  at  the  prospect  of  the  inevitable  discovery  and  pun- 
ishment of  its  crimes." 

Beginning. 

"The  beginning  of  every  thing  precedes  its  existence  and  its  continuation. 
The  first  day  of  creation  was  the  beginning  of  the  world.  From  the  beginning 
God  hath  set  forth  his  almighty  power,  his  wisdom,  and  goodness,  in  all  that  he 


PATERNAL  INSTRUCTIONS.  229 

has  made.  From  the  beginning,  the  hand  of  his  providence  has  ordained  the 
destinies  of  mankind ;  it  has  ordained  thy  destiny  also,  my  child.  Rejoice, 
therefore,  and  put  thy  trust  in  him,  who  is,  and  was,  and  shall  be,  the  everlasting 
God." 

Bowing  and  Bending. 

"  Man,  the  only  creature  that  carries  his  head  so  erect,  should  he  never  bow 
it  ?  Verily,  he  does !  For  God  has  deeply  impressed  upon  his  heart  the  feeling 
of  his  weakness,  and  a  reverential  awe  for  all  that  is  great  and  lofty.  His  head 
is  involuntarily  bowed  down  under  the  oppressive  consciousness  of  his  guilt.  His 
eye  sinks  in  gratitude  before  the  saver  of  his  life,  his  wife,  his  child.  Verily, 
verily,  it  was  no  art  that  bent  the  knee  of  the  first  man  who  prostrated  himself  in 
the  dust  at  the  sight  of  the  rising  sun.  It  was  God  within  him,  who  thus  laid 
him  low;  and  he  rose  more  humanized  in  his  feelings,  than  if  he  had  proudly 
faced  its  bright  beam.  But  the  work  of  God  is  defiled  in  the  bowings  and  bend- 
ings  of  hypocrisy,  by  which  human  nature  is  as  much  degraded  as  it  is  elevated 
and  ennobled  by  pious  adoration,  lowly  modesty,  and  kneeling  gratitude." 

Blossoming. 

"  Youth,  thou  season  of  blossoms,  how  fair  thou  art !  But,  remember  that  thy 
charms  are  destined  quickly  to  pass  away.  Thou  canst  not  ripen,  unless  they 
vanish.  Therefore,  value  thou  the  lasting  fruits  of  life  above  the  fleeting  beauty 
of  its  blossoms." 

Thanking. 

'  Good  men  and  good  things,  my  child,  cause  joy  to  the  man  of  pure  heart, 
even  though  he  derive  no  benefit  from  them ;  but  when  he  is  benefited  by  them, 
his  joy  is  increased.  He  then  seeks  the  author  of  all  goodness  and  of  all  joy ; 
and,  when  he  has  found  him,  his  voice  is  drowned  in  the  overflowing  of  his  feel- 
ings. Tears  glisten  in  his  eyes.  These,  my  child,  are  the  thanks  of  the  heart, 
which  elevate  and  ennoble  the  soul.  Whoever  thanks  not  God,  deserves  not  to  be 
called  man ;  and  whoever  thanks  not  his  fellow-men,  is  unworthy  of  all  the  good 
which  God  bestows  upon  him  through  the  hand  of  man." 

Thinking. 

"  Thinking  leads  men  to  knowledge.  He  may  see  and  hear,  and  read  and 
learn  whatever  he  please,  and  as  much  as  he  please ;  he  will  never  know  any  of 
it,  except  that  which  he  has  thought  over,  that  which,  by  thinking,  he  has  made 
the  property  of  his  mind.  Is  it  then  saying  too  much,  if  I  say  that  man,  by 
thinking  only,  becomes  truly  man.  Take  away  thought  from  man's  life,  and 
what  remains?" 

Threatening. 

"  It  is  a  misfortune  if  one  man  threaten  another.  Either  he  is  corrupt  who 
does  it,  or  he  who  requires  it." 

Failing. 

"  All  men  fail,  and  manifold  are  their  failings.  Nothing  is  perfect  under  the 
sun.  But,  unless  a  man  despise  himself,  he  will  not  think  lightly  of  any  of  his 
failings." 

Ifcjining. 

"  Man  wishes  to  have  things  not  only  good,  but  shining ;  therefore  is  there  so 
much  refining  in  the  world.  Silver,  gold,  ;md  steel  are  polished  ;  the  finest  silk, 


230  PATERNAL   INSTRUCTIONS. 

the  softest  wool,  the  clearest  cotton,  the  mellowest  tints,  the  moa*,  exquisite  fra- 
grancies,  the  most  delicate  sounds,  the  most  delicious  spices,  and  the  most  luxuri- 
ous pillows  are  preferred.  But  where  human  nature  has  attained  the  greatest 
refinement  of  sense,  a  man  of  nerve  is  hardly  to  be  found.  The  highest  degree 
of  this  refinement  is  generally  the  point  from  which  the  decline  of  individuals  and 
nations  takes  its  beginning. 

"  The  builder,  who  wishes  to  erect  a  durable  structure,  must  do  it  with  strong 
timber  5  he  must  not,  by  sawing  and  planing,  make  his  bearers  and  planks  so 
thin  as  to  render  them  unfit  for  the  purpose  for  which  they  are  intended.  And  in 
the  same  way,  parents  and  teachers  ought  never  to  refine  the  children,  nor  gov- 
ernments the  nations,  to  such  a  point  as  to  make  them  lose  the  strength  of  their 
limbs,  the  freshness  of  their  cheeks,  and  the  muscle  of  their  arms." 

Darkening. 

"  The  setting  of  the  sun  darkens  the  earth ;  and  the  failing  of  hope  the  soul 
of  man.  Why,  then,  is  it  that  every  hope  of  man  is  not  daily  renewed,  like  that 
of  the  rising  sun.  It  is  welt  that  he  should  not  forever  set  his  hope  upon  outward 
things ;  but  seek  his  repose  and  his  happiness  within  himself,  in  those  things 
which  do  not  rise  and  set  daily,  like  the  sun  of  this  earth." 

Hoping. 

"  Hoping  and  waiting  make  many  a  fool.  And  are  we,  then,  not  to  hope  at 
all  ?  How  unhappy  would  man  be  without  that  beam  of  hope  which,  in  suffer- 
ing and  sorrow,  sheds  light  through  the  darkness  of  his  soul.  But  his  hope 
must  be  intelligent.  He  must  not  hope  where  there  is  no  hope.  He  must  look 
at  the  past  with  a  steady  eye,  in  order  to  know  what  he  may  hope  of  the  future." 


2     8  176 


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